host local web server for testing

[utt1010]

hi all,

 

in past someone shared a link to service/soft like ngro k to host local web server which was more promising.

now i am not able to find the post or web link. my bad.

 

if anyone knows such alternative , kindly share.

[wolstech]

For development/testing, most people would use something like xampp on their computer: https://www.apachefriends.org/

[utt1010]

Thanks wolstech for reply

 

sorry i was not clear enough, i was searching for something that can host port 80 for hosting web server even through mobile data.

port 80 is normally blocked so web server not accessible for testing.

in the post someone shared link to software which i am not able to find.

 

Regards.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

To do what you describe, I think what you're talking about is SSH remote port forwarding (tunneling). A lot of the core software (specifically OpenSSH) for that is mainly for UNIX/Linux. If you're not using a Linux machine, there are probably Windows tools that copy the functionality.

 

I can't recommend any tutorials specifically, but try searching for "SSH remote port forwarding" and similar.

[Krydos]

You can run apache or nginx on any port. It doesn't have to be 80 and 443. True a lot of ISPs block port 80 hosting from home internet connections. So just host it on port 33333 or something. They can't block all the ports. Then to view it in your browser use a colon to specify the port like 123.45.67.78:33333/index.html

[Computer Nerd Kev]

If the OP's internet connection for the server is via mobile broadband, as he suggests, then the problem likely goes a bit deeper than port blocking.

 

Many (most?) mobile broadband ISPs use Carrier-grade NAT, which prevents any inbound connections from reaching a computer "inside".

 

To make a server accessible from the internet via such a connection, the only option is to have the server first open a connection to the client via SSH. Then the client is configured to send HTTP requests to a port that communicates via the open SSH tunnel to the server. It would indeed be preferable that the client connects on a port other than 80, so that it can still connect to other websites on the internet using that port, but this bypasses any port blocking implemented by the ISP.

 

I remember now that the actual term for this is a "reverse tunnel". This is one example for a web server (look at the reply to the first answer for what worked).

 

It's also suggested there that setting up a VPN is another solution.

 

The issue with this is that someone has to specifically configure this on the client before it can connect. So if, for example, you want to test integration with a service like PayPal IPN that makes inbound HTTP requests to the server, it won't help you because you can't set up PayPal's "client" to use your SSH tunnel (or VPN). I use mobile broadband for my home internet connection myself, so for this I resigned to uploading to Heliohost and doing the final testing there.

 

The software is OpenSSH. It may work on Windows via Cygwin, but I suspect you'd be in for a lot of headaches trying to make that work. Best if both server and client are running Linux, BSD, Mac OS, or some other UNIX-based OS.

 

If you just want to test with a device that can't run the web server itself (eg. a smart phone), I suggest that connecting it to the same LAN (router) as your server computer would be much easier and more reliable than doing SSH Tunneling over the internet.