OS X Personal Web Sharing
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Your Mac has a web server built right in. It’s handy for testing a site when you don’t have Internet access. Or for serving files at home or in a small office. From a PC you might find it easier to access Mac files using Personal Web Sharing than other file sharing services.
Turning on the service is nothing more than a checkbox. From there you simply place files in the Sites folder within your own home folder. You’ll want to replace the index file that’s placed there by default. The index file shows information on the Apache web server that powers Personal Web Sharing. You could publish an iWeb site to the Sites folder - or copy one from somewhere else.
You can access Apache support documentation on your own machine too. Once you’ve activated Personal Web Sharing visit http://localhost/manual/.
Configuring Apache involves editing text files. There’s plenty of documentation but if you’re not familiar with web servers you’ll have some research to do before making any big changes.
In the screencast Murphy simply removes the default index.html file. Without an index file Apache will display the files and folders in your Sites folder. It’s not pretty, but it makes big lists of files readily available on your network.
The important concept: A web URL often refers to an underlying folder with a different name. With web servers the part of a URL that equates to a folder in your file system is called an alias. For example, the URL http://murphymac.com/archive might point to a folder called backup_store in the file system on the machine hosting the web content - rather than a folder called ‘archive’.
You Mac running Personal Web Sharing can be accessed across the Internet if you allow port 80 in on your router. Click for more information about port forwarding. Always use caution when allowing any unsolicited traffic into your network.
Check back soon, we’ll take a closer look at using Apache and Personal Web Sharing.
12. April 2007 at 9:15 pm :
I try and do this an nobody can access the site. I get a weird ip 10.0.1.3 listed. Is this a real public ip?
13. April 2007 at 1:36 am :
Can you provide any other details? People on your network can’t access it? Across the Internet?
10.x.y.z addresses aren’t public. Where are you seeing that address? In System Preferences? If that’s the address your machine has nobody can see it from the Internet without you setting up port forwarding on your router.
15. April 2007 at 10:39 pm :
People across the internet can’t see it. And yes, it’s what I see in System Prefs. SO I guess I have to look into port forwarding. Perhaps a link to that would be nice as an update to your tutorial I am surely not the only newbie to encounter this.
By the way, I love your site. Very informative and well executed. Kudos!
16. April 2007 at 1:50 am :
Take a look at my post on Chicken of the VNC. The screencast has a bit on port forwarding. Basically, internet users have to point their browser to the address assigned by your isp. Then your router needs to point that incoming traffic to the 10.x.y.z address you’re seeing in system preferences. That’s what port forwarding does.
What kind of router is it?
And thanks!
16. April 2007 at 6:04 pm :
Airport Extreme (not the new N ver) I’m checking it out. I tried some port forwarding when I was a PC user sitting behind private ip(my old cable ISP) trying to get Shareazaa/BT et al to work. I never got it to work (because, I am told, it was impossible) so I’ll give this a go.
4. June 2008 at 1:58 am :
I just found this site today.
I’ve tried this and like the first poster, I can’t even see it (From my PC laptop here) on the web. I mainly want a setup so that I can work with other musicians across the internet. Is there a way I can set up a specific folder and have users read and wite to that without effecting everything else? I’ve looked at the other screen shot you’ve provided, and I’m still having a bit of some problems.
I’m not using a router.. could this be the problem?
6. December 2008 at 11:10 pm :
When I click my Personal Web Sharing button it says Web Share Is Starting, but nothing ever happens. Why is this?
20. September 2009 at 2:55 am :
at my wits end on this one, I have a website in my sites folder; I turn on websharing on my mac mini, and I can see that my mac mini’s firewall is allowing it through in the security settings; I set up port forwarding on my router to send port 80 traffic (TCP and UDP) to my mac mini’s internal ip address; and still nothing can be seen from outside my home network when I type in my router’s external ip address into a browser. The connection always times out when I try.
20. September 2009 at 3:45 pm :
Can you access the page from a different computer within your home network?