Outside access to local Apahce server

Aug 21, '01 11:41:16AM

Contributed by: philwebster

I am attempting to serve a site off my home machine (a G3 w/cable modem connection). I successfuly (I thought!) installed Apache-PHP-MySQL using the hints on this site. I have been happily coding PHP pages, creating and using MySQL databases, etc., and everything works like a charm when I view locally.

However, no one can seem to access the site from outside. Specifically, I have www.philwebster.com pointed (via a free domain hosting service) to my IP address; the redirection works, but then the browser hangs at "Connecting to [IP address]..."

This is mysterious to me because:

1) When I view the site "locally", I do NOT use 127.0.0.1, but rather the IP address assigned by my ISP (this is assigned using "DHCP" but does not change; I've checked numerous times). I thought this meant my request would go out over the internet and "re-enter" my box from the outside, but apparently not...

2) I KNOW I was able to access the site from outside in the past, and don't know what has changed in the meantime!

I've tried serving from /Library/WebServer/Documents as well as Users/pwebster/Sites and neither seems to work. I even messed around with various settings in httpd.conf, including Port, Listen, etc., thinking it was my ISP blocking Port 80, but to no avail. Ditto with pwebster.conf, .htaccess files, etc.

Anyone had this problem and/or have suggestions as to a fix? This is driving me absolutely crazy! Thanks in advance...

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