My first time installing centos server and adding it to xp home network. I am new to setting up my own network in general so please bear with me and help me with this basic question

I have a home windows wired ethernet xp network (simple linxs router) with 2 xp boxes and one centos5 box all connected to the same router.

I just set up the centos box running tomcat on port 8080

I need to do two very basic things at this point, but am not sure what I need to do:

What do I need to do so I can:
1. Connect in firefox on one of my xp boxes and call the tomcat server running on my centos box?

2. Be able to ftp to centos box from either of my xp boxes?

Thanks a lot!

I don't really know what tomcat is, but since it's on port 8080 I'm assuming it's some sort of web service like apache. If it has a home page, just enter the internal IP address of the CentOS box into Firefox. For example http://192.168.0.5.

As to ftp into the CentOS box, you have to run an FTP server on the box, like ProFTP, ftpd, wu-ftpd, vsftpd, etc. Then on the client machine (XP) you need an FTP client like FireFTP (firefox add-on) or Filezilla client. Then you connect by similarly putting in the local address of the CentOS box (192.168.0.5 in the example above).

You use the machines IP address with the appropriate port and application.


E.g. firefox http://<ip_of_centos_box>:8080
firefox ftp://<ip_of_centos_box>



Cheers,
Tink

Thanks - didn't realize it would be that simple...I thought I might need some other components like Samba or something....

But I am still a bit confused by two things, and it is not working for me yet:

The Ip I get from ipconfig is:
But when I go to:
http://192.168.1.102
or
http://192.168.1.102:8080

I do not get anything. Is this the right IP?

Also, Tomcat is an application server running on port 8080, but is that port visible to other computers on my network? (I thought maybe only port 80 would be visible?)

Thanks for any help you can offer!

You may need to open a port on the Windows firewall on your XP systems. You can try turning off your firewalls on the XP boxes and see if that allows you to see the 8080 port. If this works, you can work on getting the firewall opened up as needed.

More likely to be the firewall on the CentOS box. As the root user, run "service iptables stop" and then see if you can browse to the server from your XP box.

Note: You shouldn't run like this permanently. If you need ports 8080 and 102 open then you should add firewall rules that allows connections to these ports, while still blocking everything else. Run "service iptables start" to restart the firewall after your test.

But the 8080 port that I want to reach is on the Centos box. So how could the XP firewall have anything to do with that?

Because firewalls can stop outbound traffic as well as inbound. That doesn't mean Windows firewall necessarily is though.

1, In your centos system, enter "elinks http://192.168.1.102:8080"
If it doesn't work, means your tomcat web service not start.
2, In your centos system, enter "service iptables stop"
In your firefox on xp system, if you can visit http://192.168.1.102:8080, means
centos firewall block 8080 before.
3, If still doesn't work, need to check xp system to see if they block 8080. Normally they don't if you are not do any specific settings before.

THank you!. Yes, stopping iptables allowed me to access the link from my xp machine. So that means that Centos blocks outside access of port 8080.

What is the proper way to set this up? I know that for a production server you need to either use a firewall or Apache to handle requests on port 80 and then pass them to tomcat on 8080. But is there a way on a home network to allow local network access to port 8080?

Run "system-config-securitylevel" in GUI or "system-config-securitylevel-tui" in text. You can then add ports that you want the firewall to open.

I owe you some shrimp! Thanks. I opened up port 8080 and that worked.
I really appreciate everyone's help!

John

You'll probably also have to open port 20 (or is it 21?) for FTP access.