How to make WAMP accessible over the internet?

Question

I am quite new to web development. I have this web application I developed using PHP and MySQL that works on my WAMP server. I want to share it with a cousin for tips and suggestions. I want to make my WAMP server accessible to him. So, how do I do it? All I have is a computer running Windows 7 and an internet connection. :-P

P.S. - Additional suggestions are welcome as well. Because I think this is a basic problem that starters in web development will face and I want the optimal solution to come out so that it helps others as well.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Nice posts here. I actually had both issues preventing me having web server not accessible over internet (only local host).

Added a Virtual host to a valid domain (or subdomain in my case, ie you.me.com)

So reading through everyone's posts, I got it now.

I had to do both things mentioned

1) Add exception to Windows Firewall ( manually added c:\wamp\bin\apache\apache2.4.37\bin\httpd.exe ) -- A big clue that you need this is when you try to go to your site, it just times out and looks like a non working web page)

2) As another user mentioned. If you're getting a Forbidden error, despite having a index.htm file in your folder, then you need to edit c:\wamp\bin\apache\apache2.4.37\conf\extra\httpd-vhosts.conf and change:

Require local to Require all granted

Here's example:

<VirtualHost *:81>
ServerName me.you.com
DocumentRoot "c:/wamp/www/atitd"
<Directory  "c:/wamp/www/atitd/">
    Options +Indexes +Includes +FollowSymLinks +MultiViews
    AllowOverride All
    Require local (CHANGE THIS)
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>

I'm using port 81 in this example, because I'm using IIS as main web server (port 80). So in this example I'd access with http://you.me.com:81 . The listening port can be configured by right clicking the icon in toolbar, Tools, User a port other than 80 (Under Apache header). Cheers!

Answer 2

I know that if you have a server and want it to be connected to the internet you must forward the server port to 80 and then you leave it from there I believe WAMP server is good for beginners in web programming.