WiFi WebSite Question.

Den mandag den 1. december 2014 00.54.14 UTC+1 skrev Syd Rumpo:

nothing special needed, if you have a webserver installed on your computer anyone on the same net as you can access it with a webbrowser

-Lasse

Assuming you have an HTTPd on your PC, configured and running (Apache; Windows' IIS, etc.):

- set up DHCPd on the router so folks can just acquire a valid IP by virtue of "being nearby" (with their wireless running a DHCP client)

- ensure your PC has a static IP on the same subnet (as above)

- advertise this to your consumers

Of course, this assumes you (and they) know the risks associated with allowing "foreign" hosts to connect to you (and them!) via this shared subnet!

Not sure on the context....

Could you not just let users connect to the network, then share the html file you want to allow them access to. They could simply navigate to the file and open it. Would this not work?

takes a lot more explaining than installing a webserver and telling people to type an ip in their webbrowser

-Lasse

you need a Web server app running on your PC..

Actually, I think MS has something like that starting with one of those versions..

Jamie

That's true.

Interesting. Is there a way to "webserve" that's strictly via the WiFi... say I wanted only my neighbors to be able to access it. ...Jim Thompson

Of course there is, preferably via a GNU/Linux box as MS IIS is a dog, IMHO. I run several virtual web servers from home (all share my one public IP address), one site is local only, as it is a link resource.

Controlling access is by DHCP (how the 'foreign' machines connect to your local network), open to all comers or only to known machines.

One could go further with password access to particular pages. All this is basic networking stuff, none of the new web 2.0 stuff required.

Advertise the page to users as something simple, Jims-home.localnet?

IP address known to DHCP server (I use dnsmasq), it could look something like .

Grant.

That is IIS, but I wouldn't trust it. If you really want to set up anything exposed to the internet, put it on linux and separate iron. Apache installation on a modern Linux system is simple, though not trivial if you are going to do a full LAMP.

My phone has nginx installed on it to present the help files, which are in html format. Nginx is the alternative to apache.

Looks like closer to the former! Thanks, guys.

Cheers

Sure. Set up the website to only be visible on one network interface (the local WiFi). Not as straight forward at the description.

?-)

Although you do probably want to do this over a guest network so that they can't also see your printer and entire contents of your PC(s).

sounds like basically you want a "hotspot":

usually tricks are used to subver DNS and/or ruoutind to direct visitors to your content,

"geocache" is another term that may help.

yeah, put it on an address that's not reachable from the internet.

however one of your neighbours could set up a proxy that exposes your content on the internet, so you do have to trust them.

On a sunny day (Sun, 30 Nov 2014 19:25:21 -0700) it happened Jim Thompson wrote in :

I have modified a Linksys wireless access point so it also runs a webserver, no PC needed, website on SDcard, takes about 10W power:

It involves taking soldering iron, soldering in some SDcard socket, writing some C code, and soem scripts, recompiling the source code including kernel, but I did not run any simulations ..

The 1GB SDcards for this seem to be harder to get these days, ordered some spare ones from ebay, not arrived yet. SDcards seem to die all by themselves every now and then, not only these. I now keep those in a tin box.... (foe the coming nuke EMP you know).

You can setup whats known as a 'Hotspot', typically used for paid WiFi services. It can redirect users to a web portal.

You need a router that can do it, like the Buffalo routers that run DD-WRT.

Cheers