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

[Yannick Warnier]

Le lundi 15 octobre 2012 à 21:58 -0500, Jerry Vonau a écrit :
> On Mon, 2012-10-15 at 21:41 -0500, Yannick Warnier wrote:
>>> 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.

> > 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
> > 
> 
> So you want to hand edit a whole pile of machines? Try that with 20+ XOs
> and you'll get bored fast. There is a better way in nss-mdns and avahi.

Hi Jerry,

No, anything more practical is better, of course. This was not really
part of what David was asking though (I think), but in my case (local
lab) it was enough, I just had to configure 2 laptops.

I'm reading about nss-mdns now. Seems nice. Thanks for the hint.

Sorry for cross-posting the first time, I'm getting infected by my usual
contacts. I tried fixing this manually :-)

Yannick