Re: Dynamic IP Address & Mapping to Other Hard Drives

[zimpel@t-online.de (Holger Zimmermann)]

mbianco@ix.netcom.com schrieb:
> 
> Hello Group,
^^^^
Hello Mark,

> 
> I would like to introduce myself and ask a couple of questions. I just installed
^^^^
Welcome in the pi3-users group.

> the 1.0.3 version of PI3 Web Server on my 200Mhz Dell (running Win95 OSR2)
> yesterday and it has been running flawlessly ever since. Nice software!
> 
> I have a Netcom dialup connection, so my IP address changes dynamically. PI3
> doesn't seem to be able to recognize this and I have to go in and manually
> change the Hostname whenever I re-connect. Is there an automated solution for
> this?
^^^^
Configure Pi3Web 'Remotly using an IP Address' with the admin GUI and the rest 
is done by the system and the server. I use dynamic IP too and 5 minutes ago my
personal server was hit from the internet with this configuration. (Extra
tested it again with a friend and it works). But another question is unsolved
with this: How can other people find your server when they don't know your
actual IP address? Recently we had a discussion about this here in the mailing
list and this were the results:

- use services who redirect external calls to your dynamic IP i.e.
  http://www.ml.org/ml/ or http://www.dynip.com/ ...
- publish it on your homepage on the ISP's web server if you have one with
  automatic tools.

The 1st way is elegant but sometimes slowly 'cause using DNS. The 2nd isn't
so elegant but users can see if you're on-/offline at once. But you need a
own website for it.

I use the 2nd way since I like to be independent and I'm only online for some
hours a week. I really don't like to occupy a (real or virtual) domain and
then no server is listening on it mostly.

You see you've to separate 2 things:
- Make the server listening on your dynamic IP (nothing special to do for it)
- Let other people know your dynamic IP (You live in a house where address is
  changing each time you open the door. Poor postman! ;-)
> 
> Also, I can't figure out how to make content available from other hard drives.
^^^^
Stay in the admin GUI and look at the page 'Mappings'. Here you can configure
URL paths and their relation to existing physical paths. If you have (i.e.) a
directory E:\MyStuff\ and it should be published as http://myhost.org/mystuff/
then add the following mapping:

type: Document
from: /mystuff/
to:   E:\MyStuff\

Then press the 'Add' button and restart the server. Pay attention to the correct
setting of slashes and backslashes in both virtual and physical paths.

> Do I HAVE to put everything under the WebRoot, or am I missing something here?
^^^^
The answer is the above description. But be carefully and don't publish private
stuff. The Webroot is a good place where you can keep survey.
I use Pi3Web in the Intranet of our company and I even published documents on
different network drives as UNC-paths (i.e. \\server\volume\dir\) and the CD-ROM
drive of our NT box with it.

> 
> Thanks for your interest and apologies in advance if these questions have been
> asked before.
^^^^
The mailing list archive is situated at http://www.johnroy.com/pi3/support/
and you could find answers to many simple and also some more complicated
questions there. Soon we'll have some more sources for revised information:
'HowTo' documents and a 'Todo' list for bug reports and suggestions.

> 
> Mark

-- 
with regards
Holger

---------------------------------------------------------
Holger 'Zimpel' Zimmermann    Contact me:
---------------------------------------------------------
Wendishain                    tel./fax company: on demand
Germany                       tel./fax private: on demand
---------------------------------------------------------
homepage: http://home.t-online.de/home/zimpel/
web server: surf to it from my homepage (online every
            Sunday 20:00-24:00 GMT, start shifted again)
e-Mail:     zimpel@t-online.de
--------------------------------------------------------