CD Database Web Application

rctneil · 3 May 2009 at 13:18

Hello,
I am buildinga small CD web application for my family to use at home. Since it doesn't need to be accessed from outside our home we don;t wnat it putting onto a web server for everyone to access. How can we host it at home?

I don;t want to have it just on a local computer as that may not be on all the time.

What can be done to solve this issue?

Thanks

Regards,
Neil

tolien · 3 May 2009 at 13:20

You either put it on a local machine, or you put it on a machine on the internet (with or without some restrictions on who can access it). You can't just put it on nothing...

rctneil · 3 May 2009 at 13:21

I understand that. What I meant is can Ihave a small machine sat somewhere in the house with it on it which stays on all the time? and if so, how do i set that up?

tolien · 3 May 2009 at 13:24

Of course you can. Just install Apache, IIS, or any other web server on a machine.

Just about anything will run Linux in a form that'll run Apache for a handful of users. To some extent it'll depend what you've written the application in...

rctneil · 3 May 2009 at 13:26

the application is using apache, php and mysql.

How can I secure that system so that it's only accessible inside the home network?

tolien · 3 May 2009 at 13:27

If you're using NAT it's already not accessible from the outside world. Just don't forward port 80 (or whatever port you set Apache to listen on).

*AMP is easy to do on any OS. There are packages to install the three of them on most OSs; all you have to do is configure it.

rctneil · 3 May 2009 at 14:18

slylittlefox · 3 May 2009 at 15:27

rctneil said:
NAT?

Network Address Translation.

That is, if you're like 99% of typical home users, your internal network will be on 192.168.0.0/24 or a similar IP range with your ADSL/Cable router/modem being on a public IP (112.16.2.109 etc) actively translating the traffic from outside to the originating computer within your internal network.

This isn't something you should typically worry about: as Tolien has said, if you haven't actively configured your router to forward traffic from outside of your internal network to get in, you'll be fine.