local view now missing graphics, port unblocked

[dino_russ]

Hi:

Well I am now testing and setting up a customized version of zen-cart (learning how it works --love the program). It is running on my mac localhost for now. What I was hoping to do for awhile is now test it remotely via my dynamic DNS service that I have used with other web sites I have run from my Mac at home.

The problem is that the zen-cart install seems to have defaulted to port 80 so that to get it running at local host properly I had to use the actual ip address of 127.0.0.1 with the port it seems to default to on the install (80) so that to get both zen-cart and zen-cart admin running I had to use the actual ip address of 127.0.0.1:80. If I used the name localhost (or the actual mac local hame that local host translates to) the load of each page was tremendously slow but instantaneous at with the use of the ip equivalent of localhost. Not sure why it takes that long but discovered it pretty early in testing.

Well I have found quickly that port 80 will not work. My internet broadband host is probably like most (I use insight.bb) blocking/reserving port 80. I know other things I did with my dynamic DNS service (like a webcam for example) required that I set up other ports and then pass them out to the router that is attached directly to my cable modem. I tried passing the address to the router that it assigns my mac in the home net with the port of 80 but as I suspected that did not work.

So it appears to do a remote test of my zen cart I need to assign its services at 127.0.0.1 to another port that is not blocked. What I have not found in a search of the forum and faqs is how one can run zen-cart from another port than the 80 that the install to localhost seems to have set up. I have tried just changing the ports in the config files that the zen-cart install created but that did not apparently work when I tested the change in my localhost tests.

So is there away to have zen-cart that is running on my localhost go through a different port than 80?

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I am currently just wanting to test zen-cart remotely. I and a friend are setting up a business over next year after I retire that we will be selling products through and so I wanted to start testing this remotely. Once we gett the business going at a level that pays for itself I probably will look into a zen-cart friendly hosting service, but it sure would be nice if there were away to just run zen-cart on my home mac. Perhaps paying for a fixed ip at my broad band service once the business is at that level?

Thanks

Russ Jacobson

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[seethrou]

It is not an issue of Zen Cart.

You should config and setup you web server to listen to the port you wnat to use.
For example in Apache and in the config file httpd.conf

# Listen: Allows you to bind Apache to specific IP addresses and/or
# ports, instead of the default. See also the <VirtualHost>
# directive.
#
# Change this to Listen on specific IP addresses as shown below to 
# prevent Apache from glomming onto all bound IP addresses (0.0.0.0)
#
#Listen 12.34.56.78:80
Listen 80

# ServerName gives the name and port that the server uses to identify itself.
# This can often be determined automatically, but we recommend you specify
# it explicitly to prevent problems during startup.
#
# If your host doesn't have a registered DNS name, enter its IP address here.
#
ServerName localhost:80

Please also refer to all the sections related to port and <VirtualHost>.

And serach google for more info to setting up the server will help you more.

[dino_russ]

It is not an issue of Zen Cart.

Ok, could not find that for sure in zen -cart documents. I am not really too fluent in using my mac at the Unix level being more of a graphical kind of person, but have gotten into this more with trying to setup zen-cart. It was not obvious to me about how port 80 was picked in setup but I assumed that it was some kind of default for port 80 by the localhost server?

You should config and setup you web server to listen to the port you wnat to use.
For example in Apache and in the config file httpd.conf

# Listen: Allows you to bind Apache to specific IP addresses and/or
# ports, instead of the default. See also the <VirtualHost>
# directive.
#
# Change this to Listen on specific IP addresses as shown below to 
# prevent Apache from glomming onto all bound IP addresses (0.0.0.0)
#
#Listen 12.34.56.78:80
Listen 80

# ServerName gives the name and port that the server uses to identify itself.
# This can often be determined automatically, but we recommend you specify
# it explicitly to prevent problems during startup.
#
# If your host doesn't have a registered DNS name, enter its IP address here.
#
ServerName localhost:80

Please also refer to all the sections related to port and <VirtualHost>.

Ok so please excuse my lack of experience in the depths of OS X at the command level but I assume there are multiple places to set this up, not just these spots?

And serach google for more info to setting up the server will help you more.

I will try thanks.

Russ

[dino_russ]

Ok, I have had further time to search in the FAQ's and archives here and the learning curve seems a bit steep for me -- I am not a network or unix guru by any way shape or form .

But looking around in these docs a bit futher imply that for me to make my zen-cart website appear remotely from my iMac I need to alter the config.php files to have the http and https use the local ip address of my machine assigned by my router? (Correct me if I am wrong or just plain confused which i could be ) Not my local host address of 127.0.0.1?

The router assigned ip number (is that the LAN? I am at work and cannot look at my router config files at moment) is some 198.168.x.x number. Right now to make Zen-Cart work smoothly and not load slowly on local host I have the two config.php files set to point to the 127.0.0.1:80 address. Using localhost or mymachinename.local work but the local version runs very slowly so I had found I needed to set the config.php with the ip address which I guess has to do with how Apache works (as surmised by purusing lots of docs now).

So from one case I found in the archives what I will try when I get home tonight is to go to the config.php files and change the path information for directory, virtual HTTP, Virtual HTTPS Sever, and Virtual HTTPS path from 127.0.0.1:80 to my router assigned ip of 198.168.x.x for the machine (the LAN or WAN). I think that Apache by default is set to port 80 so I will keep the passthrough I setup in my router for 198.168.x.x, port 80.

Then when i try my dynamic DNS URl from dyn.com that I use with my mac and my isp broadband host I am hoping that I get more than the startup screen with misformated text only (no graphics) that fails beyond the first screen. (I HOPE!!!! )

So I will try this and report if it works but let me know if you see a flaw in my plan.

Russ Jacobson

[dino_russ]

The above worked fine. As I read more all I had to do in my router was to have the port fowarding on for port 80, and put the ip address assigned to my iMac (198.168.0.2) by router in the paths of the configure.php files (in includes and admin/includes) as I said above. It is now working remotely via this setup and my dynDNS service. Hopefully other newbies will find all this helpful.

Russ

[seethrou]

Glad to hear you got the solutions.

And thanks for the update!

[dino_russ]

Hello:

In regards to blocking of port 80. I discovered I was cuplrit with blocking of port 80 for this test remotely (now will have to try again when at work tommorrow). I had it blocked via my firewall way back. I unblocked it and was also tinkering with setting virtual host via a program called headdress (avoids editing the Apache config file).

Anyway when I look at the zen-cart most of the graphics in the display of borders, boxes and such were gone on my local iMac that is running this when I viewed using the 192.168.0.2/zen-cart-live URL. But the zen-cart store still functions -- just with out boxes, borders and such, even the The admin was still running and displaying fine in 192.168.0.2/zen-cart-live/admin URL locally on my imac. And I was able view my zen-cart and admin both just fine at dinoruss.dyn-o-saur.com/zen-cart-live on my ibook connected to my LAN. Both worked fine last night on my iMac. Here are excerpts from tools>server/version info:

The fix? Well I discovered it had nothing to do with ports or tinkering with virtual hosts. For some reason the read/write access to the files in the image directory did not carry through/got changed? Not sure why this happened but when I changed the whole directory back to read and write I found I could see the files locally.

This may help someone who is struggling with this issue, but I am curious as to what level I need to have read write access for the images folder so that I can look at locally and also protect it. I have no idea why they looked fine on my ibook connected to my LAN but not on my iMac where zen-cart resides. Something got changed when I quit last night.

Russ Jacobson