Thursday, November 22, 2012

Easy steps to make your web server from home network visible on the web

The following are the steps required to make your local webserver accessible on the web.



  • Find your system IP address using "ipconfig" command, look for something like this IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1

  • Start the tomcat on your system and try to access it from another machine in same network, this step will ensure us your system firewall is turned off, and will allow incoming connections. Make sure you do this step from the same wireless network as your web server is running.
  • Now login to your router via browser majority of them type URL will be http://192.168.0.1
  • Now depending on your router, you would need to enable port forwarding, so that request from outside on specific port get forwarded to your machine running tomcat. The following screen shows the UI for DLink router.

  • Now find your modem IP address, quick google search (What is my ip address.) will show you this IP address. In my case say it is 98.209.0.35, that means my tomcat server can be accessed using URL: http://98.209.0.35:8080
  • Now test from any browser outside (say your iPhone) your home network that your web server is accessible on the web.