Web Server

[Adam]

First, I'd like to thank Ray for the Fedora Server article. It has helped explain a lot of what I am wanting to do. Unfortunately, I am still having trouble setting up a webserver using FC2. (Just a note, I am fairly new to Linux)

The situation:
I currently have two machines (one running FC2 and the other win2k). I want to be able to use the FC2 machine to host websites (and also ftp and VNC into the machine). I am also shooting for setting up a network so that (in the near future) additional machines may be added effortlessly (using a router or switch, I have both). The internet connection is brought in via a cable modem which then is connected to the FC2 server.

What I've done:
I have installed FC2 using the server install option and then added some other options in addition to the already preselected options. Once up and running, I have installed Apache, php and mysql (would like to have these for the websites). I can currently view the website (only one up for now) locally on the server, but can not from the outside world.

Also, I do not have an internet connection on the win2k machine.

What should I do?
Should I continue on with what I have (does it sound like I'm on the right track)?
Or ....
Should I start over from scratch (in case I've really screwed something up, which is very possible... like I mentioned above, I'm pretty new to Linux)?

Hope it's not too much to ask for help on this.

[brisray]

Sorry for the delay in replying to this.

First of all who is your cable supplier? and do they allow personal webservers on their system?

By coincidence, this week I installed a network for someone using Road Runner (Time Warner) cable system. I came across an interesting thing. Road Runner appears to keep a record of the MAC (physical address) of the PC attached to their modem. It appears not to supply an IP address to multiple computers connected to the modem or to anything other than the original computer.

There is however such a thing as "MAC cloning" which a router has the capability of doing. Both the model of Linksys router I used in that installation and the Belkin model I use myself has the option for MAC cloning.

Get the MAC address of the computer that was originally connected to the cable modem.

In Windows, at the command prompt type "ipconfig /all", what you are looking for is the physical address.

In Linux type "ifconfig", what you are looking for is HWaddr.

Either should give you 6 x 2digit code - the MAC address of the network card. Ener this code into the router "MAC cloning" function. Set the router up a DHCP server then connect all the computers to that.

As far as the cable supplier is concerned, it sees the router as the original computer and will issue it an IP number. The attached computers get their IP numbers from the DHCP server in the router.

Of course, you can always set the computers up with a fixed IP address. What I do is set the web server with a fixed address and let the router issue IP addresses for the other connected PCs.

Unless a PC has an IP number it cannot connect to any network, which probably explains the problem with the Win2K PC.

I hope this helps, let us know how you get on.

Ray

[brisray]

I've now written a page about a network problem I met with using a cable modem at brisray.com/comp/ccblmdm1.htm

Regards

Ray