Mac OS X web sharing and Django

Question

I created a web app with Django and I have it running on localhost (http://127.0.0.1:8000/), my question is, how can I make it available to the world, using Mac OS X's web sharing or something?

Thanks!

Answer 1

While you start the server specify the public ip or for any ip use 0.0.0.0

Example:

sudo python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:80

If you start your application without ip and port its bind only for loopback which is 127.0.0.1 and will not accessible in your network.

Answer 2

First off, I would strongly suggest you not to serve a website from your Mac. It's a really bad idea™. Both Mac OS X web sharing and Django's included http server (which I assume you're using) are intended for testing purposes only, for a number of reasons concerning speed, security et al. which is frankly too long to post here (but I hope that someone will :)

Second, it's already open to the world: anyone can connect to your computer using your IP address instead of the loopback 127.0.0.1 (unless you're NATted). This, again, is quite useful to test it (and have your friends/colleagues/boss) test it temporarily, but again is not fit for production use. Really.