Hi everyone,

This is the first time I have actually set a PC as a web host before so Im not experianced at all.

I have Windows XP pro and have installed IIS and have also downloaded 98 Server Ext onto the PC. I have put 1 web page into www.root in Inetpub and when I typw in http://hostname the default page is displayed.

However, when I try to connect from another computer over the net, it states it can not find the server. Is there something else I should do on my computer to access my web pages from another PC?
Any Help will be greatly appreciated!

Cheers!

How is this computer connected to the internet? You need to have a public IP interface on that machine otherwise no one can see it. Give us some details on how it's physically connected to the internet and we should be able to help.

Peter

well i have a 64k dial up modem, do you mean I could only get to my web site If my home computer is physically logged onto the internet?

If you are developing on a machine that's connected to the internet thru a dial-up, someone could see your server. What you need to do is provide them with the IP address of your dial-up connection. Dial-ups (typically) change their IP address every time you dial in so you'll need to look it up each time. You can do this by typing "ipconfig" at a command prompt. Somewhere in the result you should see this:

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn

"nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn" will be your public ip address. So then someone can go to http://nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn/ and see your server. You may see that line more than once depending on how your machine is set up. If it came with a network card and that card isn't connected to a network, then that line will show up for the card as well as the dialup, but the card's IP will be bogus. All you need to do is try that address yourself and you should see your own server, if not, try the other one.

Keep in mind however that even though you have a 64k dialup, you mostly likely have about 25% of that speed going OUT. The 64k is coming IN to your machine so people browsing a site on your machine will probably get it pretty slowly.



Peter

well I can see the web page (browsing via my home machine)no problem by either typing http://MyIp add or http://hostname..... but when I try typing http://nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn (subnet mask????) It doesnt work.. and they are the only 2 Ip addresses I have..

Im sure I am doing something wrong here..

sorry, maybe I wasn't specific enough... the nnn's were just my mask to indicate numbers. if you got it working with http://youripaddress then that's what "outsiders" can use as well.

Peter

Ah no, i knew what you ment ;), was just stating the My machine IP address works but there is another IP address shown when type IPConfig, which is called "Subnet mask" which is in the format of nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn wasn't sure what that was but it doesnt work so its not relevant.. my IP address is in the format of nn.nnn.nn.nn and works on my PC..

as I say, its just it cant find the server from another PC, wasn't sure if there was some setting somewhere that should be set so it wouldnt just work locally! Its annoying me immemsly :(

There is another possibility. A lot of times, ISPs will block incoming requests to certain ports. So it's possible that your ISP is blocking port 80 (HTTP).

What you can try is in IIS you can configure another port. In IIS manager, go to your default website, rightclick->Properties. Go to the "web site" tab, click on "Advanced" button. You can then click "Add", leave IP Address as "All Unassigned", enter a TCP port (usually people will use 8080), then "OK" until you are back to the manager.

Now from the other PC, you enter http://youripaddress:8080/ and see what happens! If that doesn't work, try another port, the ISP may block that too, but most likely not. I have to use port 81 on my cable modem. Usually dial-up providers wouldn't block port 80 cause most dial-up users aren't likely to run a web server (but there are exceptions!)

As far as the subnet mask, you can ignore that. That's just another thing a that TCP/IP needs to work.

Peter