URL to my website

I have installed apache today and when I go to:
http://localhost
it shows my website...
I think if I type in my IP address it should go to my website too. But when I type in my IP address it asks for a User Name and Password. What's the problem?

>> But when I type in my IP address it asks for a User Name and Password

In which way? Authentication prompt?

>> What's the problem?

The problem is that, your IP might be configured for vhost and within <VirtualHost> block you have defined some type of authentication. You are on your own to check your httpd.conf and all .htaccess for any possible Auth* line.

Wel lI just found out something. I havent installed perl-mod thing yet, and I think the .htaccess is in that file. I downloaded perl and its 100 and something pages. I don't know where to put them all at. Should I have downloaded a perl.exe? If so, where can I get it at?

Oh yeah and it was an authentifacation prompt, then when I typed in soething and pressed login or whatever it said, it wrote out "Unauthorized Access" or something like that.

Well now when I go to my IP Address I get a not found page.

You should check the home dir of your site (you can find look up the home dir in httpd.conf) for any .htacces files (they might be hidden). If there are any, make sure they are configured OK and if you don't need 'm you better delete 'm. Also make sure youre homedir is chmod-ed OK (if you are on a unix based OS like Linux or BSD).

Bizzk

Well I just found out its elegal to do this with Comcast @home so I don't want to get into any trouble.

Well, many cable providers won't allow their clients to run a server. This is quite stupid!

You can change the port number from port 80 to anything above -/+1500 (27015, the Half Life port, is a good choice).

The won't find out (and they probably won't even care) what you are doing unless you are using your cable account as a public server and recieve very much visitors on it. But you can use your box as a private test server, I have been doing this for months!

You can also consider only running the server on a PC which isn't connected (if you have one avialable).

Bizzk
P.S. Of course this information is for educational purposes only because I don't wan't to get the blame when you get caught.

well acually I might get quite a few visitores, I was planning on making this one of my public websites.

Well, you can still run a server without getting caught. The only problem is then that you won't be able to change the port because otherwise people won't be able to acces your site without entering the port after your url (like http://www.devshed.com:80).

You will probably be better of with an external host, there a lot of free ones and when you can afford it you can use a commercial one (I provide commercial hosting services, so my opinion that free hosting is buggy might be a little coloured :-) hehe).

Bizzk

Do you know of any free external hosts?

You should search this forum for hosting companies and take a look at the "Web hosting" part. There is probably very much information about free PHP hosts, and you can also take a look at the lists of hosts at http://www.php.net. Or try google.

I did a little search myself and I found some free hosts (in Narsu's post at http://forums.devshed.com/showthrea...ht=free+hosting) and don't know if they are good but you can take a look for yourself:

http://www.nttec.com/hosting/hosting1096.html
http://spaceports.com/

Bizzk
P.S. I certainly don't recommend using a free host for professional purposes. I tried a couple of them and their quality wasn't very good, and most of them don't even exist anymore (imagine: you check your site and instead of the frontpage you get "Due financial difficulties we are out of business."). However, when your site is just a hobby you can try to find a good one, but be prepared to try a few of them before you find a good one. I still believe that it is always the best to host yourself or using a paid one when you got the money.

Well I gue using a free one wouldn't be to good. And I don't have much money so I dont want to pay. the onyl thing to do is host on my own. And I can't get my ip address to work for public. Right now I don't know my ip address. I'm on a router so do I have to do anything special?

I am not sure, am not an expert on these things (you should search the web for some info or post this question on usenet). To find out your IP adress (in windows) you have to go to Start > Run and then type winipcfg.

Lots of people use free hosts and lots of people complain about them, but they are getting better. I think that hosting yourself will be better, but maybe it is a good idea to at least try some of the free hosts. Personnally I've had some bad experiences with them, as I told you before, but I've heard some "free hosts" are not bad at all...

Bizzk

Ok, thanks for your help