How to enable local network users to access my WAMP sites?

First of all, I read at least 20 articles about this topic, and not one of them can match up the scenario and I screwed up the process numerous times. So I turn help by offering my specific scenario if any help will be appreciated.

Laptops or other devices are connected through a wireless router.

I've tried:

Enable Port 80 on firewall. nothing happened.
Run ping, ipconfig and tried IPv4 address there, denied access or bring me to verizon (my ISP), router config page.
Tried config Apache, was a mess, never get all the authorization setup in numerous posts and tried one of promising one, which crashed my WAMP, have to went through all the trouble and reinstall.

What I really tried to accomplish is really simply allow all users connect to that wireless router be able to acces my Win8 hosted WAMP sites.

I wonder if there is any specific steps that I can walk through to make it really work?

WAMP 2.4 on Win8.1. Laptop host local sites.

Solution

See the end of this post for how to do this in WAMPServer 3

For WampServer 2.5 and previous versions

WAMPServer is designed to be a single seat developers tool. Apache is therefore configure by default to only allow access from the PC running the server i.e. localhost or 127.0.0.1 or ::1

But as it is a full version of Apache all you need is a little knowledge of the server you are using.

The simple ( hammer to crack a nut ) way is to use the 'Put Online' wampmanager menu option.

left click wampmanager icon -> Put Online

This however tells Apache it can accept connections from any ip address in the universe. That's not a problem as long as you have not port forwarded port 80 on your router, or never ever will attempt to in the future.

The more sensible way is to edit the httpd.conf file ( again using the wampmanager menu's ) and change the Apache access security manually.

left click wampmanager icon -> Apache -> httpd.conf

This launches the httpd.conf file in notepad.

Look for this section of this file

<Directory "d:/wamp/www">
    #
    # Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All",
    # or any combination of:
    #   Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
    #
    # Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All"
    # doesn't give it to you.
    #
    # The Options directive is both complicated and important.  Please see
    # http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/core.html#options
    # for more information.
    #
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks

    #
    # AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
    # It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
    #   AllowOverride FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
    #
    AllowOverride All

    #
    # Controls who can get stuff from this server.
    #
#    Require all granted
#   onlineoffline tag - don't remove
     Order Deny,Allow
     Deny from all
     Allow from 127.0.0.1
     Allow from ::1
     Allow from localhost
</Directory>

Now assuming your local network subnet uses the address range 192.168.0.?

Add this line after Allow from localhost

Allow from 192.168.0

This will tell Apache that it is allowed to be accessed from any ip address on that subnet. Of course you will need to check that your router is set to use the 192.168.0 range.

This is simply done by entering this command from a command window ipconfig and looking at the line labeled IPv4 Address. you then use the first 3 sections of the address you see in there.

For example if yours looked like this:-

IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.11

You would use

Allow from 192.168.2

UPDATE for Apache 2.4 users

Of course if you are using Apache 2.4 the syntax for this has changed.

You should replace ALL of this section :

Order Deny,Allow
Deny from all
Allow from 127.0.0.1
Allow from ::1
Allow from localhost

With this, using the new Apache 2.4 syntax

Require local
Require ip 192.168.0

You should not just add this into httpd.conf it must be a replace.

For WAMPServer 3 and above

In WAMPServer 3 there is a Virtual Host defined by default. Therefore the above suggestions do not work. You no longer need to make ANY amendments to the httpd.conf file. You should leave it exactly as you find it.

Instead, leave the server OFFLINE as this funtionality is defunct and no longer works, which is why the Online/Offline menu has become optional and turned off by default.

Now you should edit the \wamp\bin\apache\apache{version}\conf\extra\httpd-vhosts.conf file. In WAMPServer3.0.6 and above there is actually a menu that will open this file in your editor

left click wampmanager -> Apache -> httpd-vhost.conf

just like the one that has always existsed that edits your httpd.conf file.

It should look like this if you have not added any of your own Virtual Hosts

#
# Virtual Hosts
#

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName localhost
    DocumentRoot c:/wamp/www
    <Directory  "c:/wamp/www/">
        Options +Indexes +FollowSymLinks +MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Require local
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Now simply change the Require parameter to suite your needs EG

If you want to allow access from anywhere replace Require local with

Require all granted

If you want to be more specific and secure and only allow ip addresses within your subnet add access rights like this to allow any PC in your subnet

Require local
Require ip 192.168.1

Or to be even more specific

Require local
Require ip 192.168.1.100
Require ip 192.168.1.101