Eircom port forwarding to access Apache Tomcat server externally

frezzabelle

Hi all, I'm new to distributing my applications externally on Apache, I've developing and running them locally. I'm trying to run an Apache server so it can be accessed externally. So I tried opening the port 8080, through testing I can see I don't have to run in localhost any more. It's an Eircom router and they were the NAT settings I adjusted.
http://xxx.xxx.1.17:8080/war/RoutePlanner.html works for me, and on other computers/phones connected to the router. xxx.xxx.1.17 is my IPv4 address when I look at ipconfig. I understand this is a local ip for others in my network so friends outside won't be able to access my webapp.

whatsmyip.org gives me this xx.xx.xxx.159 so really I want people to access that with war/RoutePlanner.html at the end. So can anyone point me in the direction to getting my app to be deployed externally. As I said I'm a developer so I havn't put alot of thought into this before. Regards.

gerryk

You may also need to reduce your firewall to 'minimum' or 'none' in the router config.

rolion

Here are three aspects:domain ,IP address and router.

Domain:
If you need to present this application to clients,then get your own domain,your own hosting plan.
In the domain hosting control panel,you'll have DNS Zone ,where you can add DNS records (DNS changes the host IP address in to a more user friendly name).
So rather than having "http://123.231.212.159/war/RoutePlanner.htm" you can have it "http://myowndomain/war/RoutePlanner.htm".
If is only for testing purposes for yourself,DynDNS will do the job,create a new account there,add it in Eircom Netopia and enjoy it.

IP
Get a DynDNS account or ask Eircom for a static IP address OR...just use the current IP address...and have fun when Eircom changes it if you are on a home package,as we know is a DHCP allocated !!

Router
On the Eircom router,go to "Expert Mode",Connection,NAT and create a new rule for your application.Open ports 8080-8080 and map it to server internal IP address.Also,the Firewall has to be set in low security mode.Make sure that the server has somehow,a static IP address on your LAN by allocating a reservation on the Router or by setting static in the OS.

Good luck...