I've got a server that I have admin access to, but don't fully manage. (I think it's a virtual machine, but I'm not 100% sure. It's running Apache on Windows Server 2003.) I share the ip with another user, so my sites all have to use the :8080 port. This is kind of ugly. Also, AFAIK, the only access I have is through an ip address. (I'm inside a corporate firewall and don't think I have access to a DNS server or anything.)
I've adjusted my hosts file so I don't have to use the ip address on my local machine, but that's not a very generic solution. Are there any options to 1) get rid of the port requirement 2) be able to use a name (maybe a machine name) instead of the ip address in a generic way?
(I'm not really a network admin -- I'm a developer managing this machine. The IT folks who really manage it are a few people away from me and tough to get to do anything, so I'm looking for a light-weight solution if possible.)
I'm assuming that you have an internal DNS server? In that case, your IT guys could just add a friendly name in DNS to resolve to the IP address...
This is highly dependent on your network setup.
The best thing is to get internal DNS to add an entry for your IP which maps it to a hostname.
If you are running a really small network, you might get resolution via NetBIOS. It doesn't sound like you are on a small network.
As far as the port goes, there is nothing you can do to change it since it is a non-standard port. The only options I can think of:
If the reason why you have to use 8080 for Apache is because IIS is also running on that machine then there is no way you can do anything to change the port to 80, since IIS will already be using it. For not using the IP part you can follow GregD or Dave
Can you not setup Apache using virtual hosts- so that whatever DNS name you choose is still residing on port 80- rather than having to type in :8080 everytime? To use a friendly name for everybody else- you will need to ask the IT guys for a DNS entry (though, its not hard for them to do).