Wesley's Tool-Box

[Related to: Use Mac as a Web Server]

Your Mac, which is also the webserver, is behind a router. You enter your website's domain name on your web browser. You cannot connect. You can still connect via your internal IP address, so the webserver is not down. What gives? Here's what might be happening.

[Related to: Use Mac as a Web Server]

Two issues may come up after installing s9y on the Mac.

1. Quicksearch Error

Attempt a search on the Quicksearch box and you may get this:

The search function did not work as expected. Notice for the administrator of this blog: This may happen because of missing index keys in your database. On MySQL systems your database user account needs to be privileged to execute this query:

CREATE FULLTEXT INDEX entry_idx on serendipity_entries (title,body,extended)

The specific error returned by the database was...

That's because the query was not run and the 'Fulltext Index' is not available. Time to pay Terminal a visit.

[Related to: Use Mac as a Web Server]

After setting up a domain name for your website, you might want to change the domain name setting for phpBB and s9y so you can administer them from anywhere.

phpBB

Login to phpBB and click Go to Administration Panel. Re-authenticate and you'll be at the admin page. Click Configuration under General Admin. The first setting should read Domain Name. Enter your domain name here instead of 127.0.0.1 or whatever IP address it had before. Scroll down and press Submit to complete.

s9y

Login via Blog Administration. On the admin page, click Configuration under Administration. Open up Path and find URL to blog. Enter http://domain_name/serendipity/ where domain_name is your domain name and serendipity is the folder where your s9y files are in.

So far, we've got a whole website running phpBB and s9y, and... great... you can connect, login, make a post, etc. But you and you only right now. The website needs to get out of the basement and see the light.

6. Do We Have an Address?

The trusty "System Preferences - Sharing - Services - Personal Web Sharing and see bottom" gig gets you an IP address that your website is accessible from. If you're connecting to the internet directly via dedicated line or a modem (DSL, cable, etc.), you'll see an actual IP address that your website can be accessed from elsewhere on the internet. If that's the case, great. Move to section 7. However, if your Mac is hooked up to a router that relays the internet connection, you'll see an internal (private) IP address such as 192.168.1.32 showing up. The most common one starts with 192.168 but other examples include 172.16 and 10.0. Read this Wikipedia entry for details.

Wow, I must really be in the groove tonight. I think I'll do the last section after sleeping, but a glass of Pepsi should keep me awake just enough to write this section.

5. s9y (Serendipity)
In search for a good blog (weblog) solution to install on my web server, I came across Serendipity Weblog System, or 's9y' for short. There are other PHP-based blog systems out there such as Tatter Tools which seems to be gaining popularity in Korea, but I'm quite comfortable with how s9y works and I think it's good for you, too. I mean, just look at this place! **cough**