Can't Access OS X Apache Using IP

S

smfoushee

Bit poster
I've found a few threads are are close to describing my problem but I can't figure out how to fix this issue. I have a copy of XP Home running the latest 3xxx build (although this problem existed in 1970 before I upgraded) and I can't bring up my local webserver running on the OS X host using the IP address of the Mac (should be accessible via 192.168.1.100). I've gone to Network settings in Sys Prefs and found the Host-Guest adapter is given an IP along the lines of 10.211.55.xxx, and upon entering that IP in IE I get a ping back and info page from my cable modem. I'm running the VM using the bridged ethernet option set as default (my iMac connects using Airport), and have tried using shared and host options for the network (shared still allows Windows to connect to the net, host does not), but neither option resolves this issue.

I really only bought this package to test sites on my webserver, if I can't get this going it will be back to a rather old frankenstein machine in the closet and hours of painstaking hair pulling. Anyone have an idea what is going on?
 
Disable the Mac firewall. Enable telnet and ftp services. From Windows try to telnet or ftp to the Mac. If none of it works you might be trying the wrong IP. Remember to re-enable the Mac firewall.
 
Thank you for the response, after making those changes I was able to ping the host using 192.168.1.xxx, however IE still returns a DNS 'The page cannot be displayed' error when trying to access the Mac's webserver.
 
This is going to sound like a dumb question, but can you open that page using the IP in an OS X browser? http 1.1 does some funny things with the client's request.
 
Absolutely, and I've made sure the site's absolute URLs point to the IP and not the mac's local address (i.e. http://192.168.1.xxx/page/file NOT http://imac.local/page/file). It obviously sees the Host computer based on the ping backs, so I'm thinking this is either a DNS issue or an IE issue (neither of which I'm well versed enough to fix), but I'll try firefox in the meantime although thats not the purpose of this exercise. I'll report back in a few minutes with a Firefox 2.0 test.
 
Ok, Firefox is reporting an error, but gave me more useful information. Apparently the request is valid, but the mac is renaming the URL from the IP to imac.local. Any idea on how to stop that (not really an Apache guru, and have no idea why its rewriting the url, no rules are setup for mod_rewrite)?
 
That's the http 1.1 sensitivity. If you have a hostname that works then you can create an entry in windows's host table with the ip of the server. That way you can call it by hostname and the web server will respond.

In Windows\System32\drivers\etc you should find the host table and it can be edited with notepad. Don't let it add a .txt extension to it.

Enter the IP and a space or tab, then the hostname (imac.local is as good as anything for now if it works from OS X). After you've saved the file IE should see the web server.

This is controlled in the apache httpd.conf file, or virtual_hosts.conf file if you use one.
 
Glad to help. To know more about why this didn't work as you expected, read up on Apache virtual hosting. It appears that your configuration does not have a virtual host definition for the IP of the machine, so if you don't request pages using a hostname it recognizes it will fail.
 
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