What's my local host address (URL)?

Question

What's my local host address (URL)?

I installed a database-driven website on my MacBook Pro from a "Catalogue of Life" CD. It's supposed to automatically synch with MAMP, which I have installed on my computer. The instructions tell me to access the website I installed by typing http://localhost:8888/col2013ac/ into my browser, where 888 is the port number.

The above URL doesn't work, so I replaced 8888 with three other numerals I found listed on various MAMP pages - 80, 8890 and 3306. I also tried 8080, which I found on the Internet. I always get the message "Google could not connect," except that http://localhost:80 fetches the error "forbidden."

I also get the "forbidden" message when I try http://localhost/col2013ac/

So I'm completely stumped. What's my localhost address?

Thanks.

MacBook Pro

Posted on Nov 30, 2013 8:51 PM

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Answer 1

Camelot

Level 9

58,407 points

Nov 30, 2013 11:00 PM in response to David Blomstrom

Your localhost address is, and always will be 'localhost' (or 127.0.0.1 if you want the address).

However, that's not relevant here - you're already connecting to Apache... what's more of an issue is where your specific site is configured.

The fact that you cannot connect on the other port numbers (8890, 3306, 8080, etc.) means that Apache isn't listening on that port.

Since you only get a response on port 80, that seems to be where Apache is running (although it could be running on almost any other port).

The trouble is that tracking this down will be a PITA if you're not familiar with apache. It might also be complicated by the fact you installed MAMP and may not be using the default Apache distribution.

It may also be complicated by what else (if anything) Apache is doing on your machine - it might be simpler to reconfigure Apache to work with this app, but without knowing what else you're doing that might be a problem, too.

So, in short, you need to dig deeper into what your machine is doing to work out where the app is and how to get to it. Knowing the local hostname isn't part of the problem.

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