I am a computer science student and have an average knowledge of linux.
I just set up a web server at home lighttpd with php5 and mysql.
The problem is accessing it from outside the local network.
I have forwarded port 80 through my router to the computer.
I used a free dynamic dns service so that it could keep updating my IP because my ISP gave me a dynamic ip adress.
If I dont alter the conf file I can access the default page by typing http://"my local ip adress"
however if I type http://bla.dyndns.com
nothing comes up. it hangs.
I have tried making directories and trying to make some kind of host entry in the conf file. but after these changes the browser comes up with an error. Id really aprecciate it if someone could tell me the right way to alter the conf file and the permission changes / directories i should add.Thanks a lot.
p.s i did try googling all of this but only found info on subdomains and so forth and it didnt help much.

so this is to access it from *outside* the network, but you're testing this *outside* url from *inside* the network? If so that'll be the problem. Actually try it remotely, as otherwise from the inside you are going to be requesting that port from the router, as you'll be hitting the wrong side of the router and so not getting natted.

yep- that occured to me too. i looked it up and if the router supports loopback it should work. mine supports it. but..just in case I went to my friends house and tried accessing it from there. Same problem. All the websites i looked up say I must add a virtual host entry into lighttpd.conf. but I tried and it doesnt seem to help. I must be doing something wrong. if you could help me out with that itd be awesome. thanks a lot for replying

Post your lighttpd.conf

# lighttpd configuration file
#
# use it as a base for lighttpd 1.0.0 and above
#
# $Id: lighttpd.conf,v 1.7 2004/11/03 22:26:05 weigon Exp $

############ Options you really have to take care of ####################

## modules to load
# at least mod_access and mod_accesslog should be loaded
# all other module should only be loaded if really neccesary
# - saves some time
# - saves memory
server.modules = (
# "mod_rewrite",
# "mod_redirect",
# "mod_alias",
"mod_access",
# "mod_cml",
# "mod_trigger_b4_dl",
# "mod_auth",
# "mod_status",
# "mod_setenv",
"mod_fastcgi",
# "mod_proxy",
# "mod_simple_vhost",
# "mod_evhost",
# "mod_userdir",
# "mod_cgi",
# "mod_compress",
# "mod_ssi",
# "mod_usertrack",
# "mod_expire",
# "mod_secdownload",
# "mod_rrdtool",
"mod_accesslog" )

## a static document-root, for virtual-hosting take look at the
## server.virtual-* options
server.document-root = "/var/www/lighttpd/"

## where to send error-messages to
server.errorlog = "/var/log/lighttpd/error.log"

# files to check for if .../ is requested
index-file.names = ( "index.php", "index.html",
"index.htm", "default.htm" )

## set the event-handler (read the performance section in the manual)
# server.event-handler = "freebsd-kqueue" # needed on OS X

# mimetype mapping
mimetype.assign = (
".rpm" => "application/x-rpm",
".pdf" => "application/pdf",
".sig" => "application/pgp-signature",
".spl" => "application/futuresplash",
".class" => "application/octet-stream",
".ps" => "application/postscript",
".torrent" => "application/x-bittorrent",
".dvi" => "application/x-dvi",
".gz" => "application/x-gzip",
".pac" => "application/x-ns-proxy-autoconfig",
".swf" => "application/x-shockwave-flash",
".tar.gz" => "application/x-tgz",
".tgz" => "application/x-tgz",
".tar" => "application/x-tar",
".zip" => "application/zip",
".mp3" => "audio/mpeg",
".m3u" => "audio/x-mpegurl",
".wma" => "audio/x-ms-wma",
".wax" => "audio/x-ms-wax",
".ogg" => "application/ogg",
".wav" => "audio/x-wav",
".gif" => "image/gif",
".jar" => "application/x-java-archive",
".jpg" => "image/jpeg",
".jpeg" => "image/jpeg",
".png" => "image/png",
".xbm" => "image/x-xbitmap",
".xpm" => "image/x-xpixmap",
".xwd" => "image/x-xwindowdump",
".css" => "text/css",
".html" => "text/html",
".htm" => "text/html",
".js" => "text/javascript",
".asc" => "text/plain",
".c" => "text/plain",
".cpp" => "text/plain",
".log" => "text/plain",
".conf" => "text/plain",
".text" => "text/plain",
".txt" => "text/plain",
".dtd" => "text/xml",
".xml" => "text/xml",
".mpeg" => "video/mpeg",
".mpg" => "video/mpeg",
".mov" => "video/quicktime",
".qt" => "video/quicktime",
".avi" => "video/x-msvideo",
".asf" => "video/x-ms-asf",
".asx" => "video/x-ms-asf",
".wmv" => "video/x-ms-wmv",
".bz2" => "application/x-bzip",
".tbz" => "application/x-bzip-compressed-tar",
".tar.bz2" => "application/x-bzip-compressed-tar",
# default mime type
"" => "application/octet-stream",
)

# Use the "Content-Type" extended attribute to obtain mime type if possible
#mimetype.use-xattr = "enable"


## send a different Server: header
## be nice and keep it at lighttpd
# server.tag = "lighttpd"

#### accesslog module
accesslog.filename = "/var/log/lighttpd/access.log"

## deny access the file-extensions
#
# ~ is for backupfiles from vi, emacs, joe, ...
# .inc is often used for code includes which should in general not be part
# of the document-root
url.access-deny = ( "~", ".inc" )

$HTTP["url"] =~ "\.pdf$" {
server.range-requests = "disable"
}

##
# which extensions should not be handle via static-file transfer
#
# .php, .pl, .fcgi are most often handled by mod_fastcgi or mod_cgi
static-file.exclude-extensions = ( ".php", ".pl", ".fcgi" )

######### Options that are good to be but not neccesary to be changed #######

## bind to port (default: 80)
#server.port = 81

## bind to localhost (default: all interfaces)
#server.bind = "127.0.0.1"

## error-handler for status 404
#server.error-handler-404 = "/error-handler.html"
#server.error-handler-404 = "/error-handler.php"

## to help the rc.scripts
server.pid-file = "/var/run/lighttpd.pid"


###### virtual hosts
##
## If you want name-based virtual hosting add the next three settings and load
## mod_simple_vhost
##
## document-root =
## virtual-server-root + virtual-server-default-host + virtual-server-docroot
## or
## virtual-server-root + http-host + virtual-server-docroot
##
#simple-vhost.server-root = "/srv/www/vhosts/"
#simple-vhost.default-host = "www.example.org"
#simple-vhost.document-root = "/htdocs/"


##
## Format: <errorfile-prefix><status-code>.html
## -> ..../status-404.html for 'File not found'
#server.errorfile-prefix = "/usr/share/lighttpd/errors/status-"
#server.errorfile-prefix = "/srv/www/errors/status-"

## virtual directory listings
#dir-listing.activate = "enable"
## select encoding for directory listings
#dir-listing.encoding = "utf-8"

## enable debugging
#debug.log-request-header = "enable"
#debug.log-response-header = "enable"
#debug.log-request-handling = "enable"
#debug.log-file-not-found = "enable"

### only root can use these options
#
# chroot() to directory (default: no chroot() )
#server.chroot = "/"

## change uid to <uid> (default: don't care)
server.username = "lighttpd"

## change uid to <uid> (default: don't care)
server.groupname = "lighttpd"

#### compress module
#compress.cache-dir = "/var/cache/lighttpd/compress/"
#compress.filetype = ("text/plain", "text/html")

#### proxy module
## read proxy.txt for more info
#proxy.server = ( ".php" =>
# ( "localhost" =>
# (
# "host" => "192.168.0.101",
# "port" => 80
# )
# )
# )

#### fastcgi module
## read fastcgi.txt for more info
## for PHP don't forget to set cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1 in the php.ini
fastcgi.server = ( ".php" =>
( "localhost" =>
(
"socket" => "/var/run/lighttpd/php-fastcgi.socket",
"bin-path" => "/usr/bin/php-cgi"
)
)
)

#### CGI module
#cgi.assign = ( ".pl" => "/usr/bin/perl",
# ".cgi" => "/usr/bin/perl" )
#

#### SSL engine
#ssl.engine = "enable"
#ssl.pemfile = "/etc/ssl/private/lighttpd.pem"

#### status module
#status.status-url = "/server-status"
#status.config-url = "/server-config"

#### auth module
## read authentication.txt for more info
#auth.backend = "plain"
#auth.backend.plain.userfile = "lighttpd.user"
#auth.backend.plain.groupfile = "lighttpd.group"

#auth.backend.ldap.hostname = "localhost"
#auth.backend.ldap.base-dn = "dc=my-domain,dc=com"
#auth.backend.ldap.filter = "(uid=$)"

#auth.require = ( "/server-status" =>
# (
# "method" => "digest",
# "realm" => "download archiv",
# "require" => "user=jan"
# ),
# "/server-config" =>
# (
# "method" => "digest",
# "realm" => "download archiv",
# "require" => "valid-user"
# )
# )

#### url handling modules (rewrite, redirect, access)
#url.rewrite = ( "^/$" => "/server-status" )
#url.redirect = ( "^/wishlist/(.+)" => "http://www.123.org/$1" )
#### both rewrite/redirect support back reference to regex conditional using %n
#$HTTP["host"] =~ "^www\.(.*)" {
# url.redirect = ( "^/(.*)" => "http://%1/$1" )
#}

#
# define a pattern for the host url finding
# %% => % sign
# %0 => domain name + tld
# %1 => tld
# %2 => domain name without tld
# %3 => subdomain 1 name
# %4 => subdomain 2 name
#
#evhost.path-pattern = "/srv/www/vhosts/%3/htdocs/"

#### expire module
#expire.url = ( "/buggy/" => "access 2 hours", "/asdhas/" => "access plus 1 seconds 2 minutes")

#### ssi
#ssi.extension = ( ".shtml" )

#### rrdtool
#rrdtool.binary = "/usr/bin/rrdtool"
#rrdtool.db-name = "/var/lib/lighttpd/lighttpd.rrd"

#### setenv
#setenv.add-request-header = ( "TRAV_ENV" => "mysql://user@host/db" )
#setenv.add-response-header = ( "X-Secret-Message" => "42" )

## for mod_trigger_b4_dl
# trigger-before-download.gdbm-filename = "/var/lib/lighttpd/trigger.db"
# trigger-before-download.memcache-hosts = ( "127.0.0.1:11211" )
# trigger-before-download.trigger-url = "^/trigger/"
# trigger-before-download.download-url = "^/download/"
# trigger-before-download.deny-url = "http://127.0.0.1/index.html"
# trigger-before-download.trigger-timeout = 10

## for mod_cml
## don't forget to add index.cml to server.indexfiles
# cml.extension = ".cml"
# cml.memcache-hosts = ( "127.0.0.1:11211" )

#### variable usage:
## variable name without "." is auto prefixed by "var." and becomes "var.bar"
#bar = 1
#var.mystring = "foo"

## integer add
#bar += 1
## string concat, with integer cast as string, result: "www.foo1.com"
#server.name = "www." + mystring + var.bar + ".com"
## array merge
#index-file.names = (foo + ".php") + index-file.names
#index-file.names += (foo + ".php")

#### include
#include /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd-inc.conf
## same as above if you run: "lighttpd -f /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf"
#include "lighttpd-inc.conf"

#### include_shell
#include_shell "echo var.a=1"
## the above is same as:
#var.a=1

## include configuration snippets, usually provided by packages
include_shell "find /etc/lighttpd/conf.d -maxdepth 1 -name '*.conf' -exec cat {} \;"

please could you tell me what I should add, where i should create directories. and what if any permissions to assign to the the directories.

Looks like it's set to listen on all interfaces on port 80. Confirm with (as root) Check your port forwarding, make sure it's going to the right LAN IP and port?

tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:80 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 27545/lighttpd
unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM HÖRT 58422 27546/php-cgi /var/run/lighttpd/php-fastcgi.socket-0
unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM HÖRT 58426 27548/php-cgi /var/run/lighttpd/php-fastcgi.socket-1
unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM HÖRT 58429 27549/php-cgi /var/run/lighttpd/php-fastcgi.socket-2
unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM HÖRT 58432 27550/php-cgi /var/run/lighttpd/php-fastcgi.socket-3

thanks alucard. this is what i got from the command. im not sure if it means its working on all interfaces or not. port forwarding is correct. when i go to my site bla.dyndns.org it used to give an error when i didnt have the server running which is normal. now with lighttpd it just says waiting for reply. and hangs. im not sure, maybe the ports are all ok but the lighttpd server doesnt know how to handle the request. there must surely be an entry in lighttpd.conf with my domain name..just a thought i just..dont know what to put there.

This means Lighty is listening on port 80 (standard HTTP) on all available interfaces. So it is likely to not be a lighttpd problem.

You do not need to specify your domain name until you want to serve more than one site.

What is in /var/log/lighttpd/error.log, if anything? What does bla.dyndns.com resolve to and does that match your public IP (does NOT start with 10, 127, 172, or 192.168)?

thanks. i understand. I am completely puzzled but i left the server running for 12 hours and something must have clicked with the router and my dydns account maybe an update i dont know but its working. i think ill stick with one site for now and when my skills get better i might add a subdomain but thanks for everything.