make your localhost web application available over the internet

To publish the web application from your localhost to the entire world is pretty simple. Here are what’s needed:

1. A web application or just a simple helloworld page running on a web server such as Apache, Jboss, Websphere, etc.

2. Configure the port number on the web server for your web application. Here is an example of how to set up port numbers with Apache server.

3. Make sure the web application is running correctly on your localhost, if you configured 88 as the port number for the web application or just the helloworld page, go to http://localhost:88 and make sure you see your web application or the helloworld page.

4. Find out the local ip address of your computer.
On Windows, open up the command prompt and type ipconfig/all , and look for ipv4 or ipv6 address under the LAN adaptor.
On Mac OS, open up the System Preferences -> Sharing -> Web Sharing, you will see the ip address. Or open up the terminal and type ifconfig and look for inet

5. Do the port forwarding configuration on your router admin. Login to your router admin, the router admin user interface will different depends on the brand of your router. Anyhow, just look for options for port forwarding or port rerouting or port configurations. Once you are at the port forwarding page, for example if your local ip address you find from step 4 is 199.125.1.19 and port number is 88, then make a port forwarding service for HTTP request for the ip address 199.125.1.19 and port 88

6. Now find out your ip address by going to ipaddress.com

7. Testing. If the ip address you found from step 6 is 123.25.145.05, then you can ask someone outside your router network to go to http://123.25.145.05:88 to see if it is available. Or you can hide your real ip address and test it yourself.

8. How it works. When someone outside of your network made http request to http://123.25.145.05:88 your router receives the request and it followed the port forwarding rule you set on the step 5, and direct the request to your local ip address 199.125.1.19:88