[Server-devel] trouble accessing HTTP server when using manual network configuration

[Yannick Warnier]

Hi David,

For once, I think I can help on this list :-)

I didn't have time to finish it, but I was actually writing a
documentation explaining the whole stuff and how to "unlock" your web
server.

For some reason (not explained by the author, neither that I understand
as of yet), the configuration of the web server (which you should be
able to find in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd-xs.conf) restricts the "Listen"
address to:
Listen 172.18.0.1:80
and/or
Listen 127.0.0.1:80

Just comment those lines (with a # prefix) and add
Listen 80

Then reload httpd
/etc/init.d/httpd restart

and your webserver should start responding from other machines.

Now, this might not be the case for you (I'm using the home-modified
Peruvian version) but it might also be the case that your virtual hosts
are configured somehow, somewhere (in the applications installed), to
only respond correctly when called as "http://schoolserver/". If this is
the case, then you would have to add the IP address and that name in
the /etc/hosts file of the clients. Something like

187.12.15.183 schoolserver

I think that would do it. Please let me know if it worked, because as I
was going mad about this, I started modifying files without taking
backups and now I'm not sure which was the initial state (and didn't
have time yet to reinstall from scratch).

Just as additional information: although there might be a Squid
configuration there, it doesn't seem to be blocking anything *entering*
the server, so the unavailability of the web server doesn't come from
there (this will save you a few gray hairs).

And while I'm at it, servers like that, distributed into the wild,
should really use a more orderly distribution than Fedora. The way this
server has been configured transpires a bit of lack of love. I'm not
offering myself to do it, but I wanted to leave my opinion here (just in
case many would agree).

Cheers,

Yannick Warnier


Le lundi 15 octobre 2012 à 20:37 -0500, David Kanenwisher a écrit :
> Hello,
> 
> I'm trying to get the 0.7 of the school server to work on a laptop
> that needs to be taken to different schools which already have an
> existing network. I don't want to run the network setup tool since I'm
> concerned enabling DHCP and DNS will cause trouble on the school's
> network. Sadly, though not running the setup seems to have made the
> HTTP server unreachable and I'm stumped as to why.
> 
> I set the hostname of the server to the IP address assigned to the
> server by the router via DHCP and configured Apache to listen on all
> interfaces. When I run netstat I can see Apache is listening on all
> interfaces on port 80, as configured. I can use wget on the server to
> retrieve the webpage at localhost, 127.0.0.1 and the IP address given
> by DHCP. When I try to wget or telnet to the server from another PC I
> get a message that the host is unreachable even though, using tcpdump,
> I can see packets arriving on the server. Also, I can ssh to the
> server from another PC.
> 
> I feel like I'm missing something obvious and was reluctant for quite
> a while to message the list. I figured I must be close! The solution
> just around the corner, but I realize now that I'm stumped.
> 
> Any help would be much appreciated or if you need anymore info I'd be
> glad to get it.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> David Kanenwisher
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