I need clients to login and view the “production server” once or twice throughout a project.
I use the XAMPP package, but what is it that I should do to allow them access in this scenario?
Which is cheaper, the time spent trying to fiddle with getting xampp visible online, or the $5 it costs for a month of a basic vps? (:
FWIW (and you’ve probably done these things)
Does your router allow for single port forwarding? If so you could forward HTTP (80) requests to your local IP.
and (I use WAMP on Win7 as a dev server) and it’s necessary to put the server on line. Does XAMPP do similar?
Also, I don’t have a static IP, but can use the IP address allocated by my ISP to connect to my dev server. Whether you use this or a static IP just make sure you turn off the port forwarding when your users viewing is finished.
Did you also specify there that incoming traffic for the program should be routed to the IP you set up in step 5? If not, there’s the problem.
I’d add these days, if you are actually in the business of doing web stuff, there is little excuse to not have a cheap VPS setup
I’m working my way up to cheap.
So if the ISP blocks port 80 will I receive a message indicating that or just a standard connection time out?
I’ve created a static IP & thought everything else necessary but I can only get the link to work in network.
Thanks guys, looking into everything today. Might take me a minute as this is the first time…
You’ll get a time out.
The tricky thing is that you’ll also get a time out if the port forwarding isn’t set up correctly, so just the time out error doesn’t completely identify what the problem is…
Could you tell us what you did to set up port forwarding?
Yup, that’s the way it’s supposed to work. IPs on the internet are strictly regulated and you can’t just create a new one. You’ll have to make due with the IP your ISP assigned to you.
Thanks, well I thought that it was a local static IP that I was making. As for the security, this part might have answered my question…
Appreciate all the help.
Which is cheaper, the time spent trying to fiddle with getting xampp visible online, or the $5 it costs for a month of a basic vps?
Starts at $20 a month for the most basic…
$50/mo w/ a control panel - not being a true administrator would really like that…
…at my host that is
Not saying I won’t go to a VPS, I’m just wondering why this other way is such a bad option. Everything takes some trying the first time around.
Yup, that’s the way it’s supposed to work. IPs on the internet are strictly regulated and you can’t just create a new one. You’ll have to make due with the IP your ISP assigned to you.
What do you mean by “protected” ?
Could you tell us what you did to set up port forwarding?
- First I went to Start > cmd > ipconfig /all
- Next I recorded the IPv4, Subnet Mask, Default Gateway, and the Preferred/Alternate DNS server addresses
- I then went to Control Panel > Network & Sharing > Local Area Connection > Selected Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) > Properties
- Selected Use the following IP address:
- Entered all of the information noted in #2 (however giving the last section of the IP a unique number between 1 - 254) and selected OK
- Went to my router home page… selected Firewall
- Allowed the program through the firewall
- In Windows Firewall allowed program through on port 80 (or so I think)
Obviously missing something(s).
Thanks for any help.
They (your provider) could have blocked access to port 80 in which case it won’t work. You could try a different port if that’s the case but that’s slightly more complicated, so try port 80 (the default for http) first 
It’s a combo router/modem from AT&T (I realize this isn’t relevant really, just put it here so if anyone knows it). So I think that will work… don’t see why not. Appreciate the glimmer of hope!
Did you also specify there that incoming traffic for the program should be routed to the IP you set up in step 5? If not, there’s the problem.
Huh, I don’t even have the option to do so on that screen. It takes just the application name & port number.
BTW on Vista.
I have a quite a bit to learn obviously. I did get it to work but not in the way I was trying to do…
I allowed “Web Server” through in the routers firewall settings.
Then I took the routers public IP (not the custom IPv4 address I set up) and was able to access it outside of my local network, so http://public-ip/my-web-folder.
So that’s confusing. I thought I was going to have access via my custom IP address. Another reason I’m interested in knowing if that’s right is because the directory isn’t protected. When I tried none of the instructed changes took place so that’s why I was thinking that might not work.
I realize there are so many parameters to each setup - if anything strikes you though appreciate the help-
M
I’d add these days, if you are actually in the business of doing web stuff, there is little excuse to not have a cheap VPS setup to do stuff like demos and other web-facing utility work.
Sorry, but you don’t need to put that info in the hosts file at all - the client’s computer couldn’t care less what’s in there and Apache doesn’t care either, so long as it has some reference in the vhost config to determine from the Host header in the HTTP request which content to serve it’s happy.
The only thing he needs to do is put the IP of his computer on his network (his LAN IP – the one that the modem/router is forwarding to, not the IP the provider assigned to his modem) in his vhost config along with the Host it should resolve to.
Trust me, that’s how I’ve been setting it up for years and it works flawlessly
AND don’t forget to update your hosts file (Windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts) with your DEDICATED IP address pointing to your VirtualHost - you did create an httpd-vhosts.conf file, too, didn’t you?
Regards,
DK
Only two things I can think of.
- invite them over to your place.
- Connect with them on Skype and share your screen, so they can see your desktop.
Oh, I was thinking this was possible by IP or something. Am I that far off with that? I’ve been way wrong before so… 
No it’s definitely not designed as a production server, but IMHO it’s perfectly fine to use as a test server for clients access. Just don’t run a public popular website on it; too many security implications.
Can you tell us your network setup? Are you connected through a router? If so, you can use port forwarding to route all incoming traffic on port 80 to the internal IP of your PC. Since the way to set this up varies enormously between routers I can’t tell you exactly how you can do that, but the manual of your router can (look for “port forwarding”)
Only two things I can think of.
- invite them over to your place.
- Connect with them on Skype and share your screen, so they can see your desktop.
Neither are very good options, but XAMPP (as far as I know) is not designed to be a server that’s connected to the www. It would probably be very dangerous even to attempt that.