Set up node so it is externally visible?

Question

Newbie question - might be more appropriate for ServerFault, apologies if so.

I'm setting up node on Ubuntu 11.10, following the excellent howtonode instructions on installing Node.

I can get the Hello World page running on 127.0.0.1:8000, but how do I set it up to appear for my server's external IP?

I'm used to configuring Apache - what's the node equivalent of Apache's "Hello World" page?

Thanks for your help.

UPDATE: Maybe what I need is a tutorial on hosting Node. Would be great if anyone could suggest a good one.

Answer 1

There is no configuration needed to make your external IP address work with node.js, unless and until you bind it otherwise.

Instead of .listen(PORT, IP_ADDRESS_OR_HOST ); use .listen(PORT);

Then, just use IP_ADDRESS_OR_HOST:PORT to access it.

Answer 2

You can set up Node to listen on any IP/port, check out http://nodejs.org/docs/v0.6.3/api/http.html#server.listen

Or a quick modified example from the link you supplied:

var http = require('http');

http.createServer(function (req, res) {
  res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
  res.end('Hello Node.js\n');
}).listen(80, "192.168.1.1");

console.log('Server running at http://192.168.1.1:80/');