How do I approach my local web interface(s) from a URL

Question

I have a Raspberry Pi with some applications running, that require me to access a web interface.

I was wondering how I could basically connect to those web interfaces from outside my home-network, over a custom domain.

So for example, I'd like to visit heywhatsmypidoing.com/webmin to access my webmin, which I would normally visit by going to 192.168.0.1:10000.

I already have a domain name, but I have no idea where to go next.

you need to forward ports, so the easy way to address the service (once you have forwarded port 10000 out to the outside on port 10000) would be http://heywhatsmypidoing.com:10000/webmin . if its the only service you are port forwarding (you don't have a webserver) you could map port 80 on the outside to 10000 on the inside and just use http://heywhatsmypidoing.com/webmin , but that only works because your browser sends everything to port 80 unless it is otherwise specified. — Frank Thomas, Dec 28 '17 at 16:33
There have been several questions on this topic here on SuperUser. Here's one to start with: https://superuser.com/questions/1112193/why-cant-i-access-my-web-server-from-outside-the-network?rq=1 — music2myear, Dec 28 '17 at 16:53

Anaksunaman · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-30T12:35:15.977

You want a reverse proxy. Basically, you would set up a web server (on your Pi or elsewhere) such as Apache or Nginx to listen on port 80 (http) and have special entries to point to your local service IP/ports. In Apache this might look something like:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    Server Name heywhatsmypidoing.com
    # ServerAlias www.heywhatsmypidoing.com
    DocumentRoot "/www/example1"

    # ProxyPreserveHost On
    ProxyPass /webmin http://192.168.0.1:10000
    ProxyPassReverse /webmin http://192.168.0.1:10000

    # Other directives here
</VirtualHost>

Regardless of choice, you should be able to find some tutorials to help you set up either Apache or Nginx in this capacity for the Pi. I would recommend setting up a basic publicly available web server first and making sure it works before attempting any kind of proxying.

Notes

While port forwarding can be used in conjunction with a reverse proxy, it shouldn't be required (with the possible exception of port 80).
In some instances, you may need to proxy more than one URL for the same application (e.g. http://192.168.0.1:10000 and 192.168.0.1:10000/web)
Trailing slashes can be important. For Apache specifically, this applies especially to the second argument in the example above. I don't know what webmin requires, but certain applications may need e.g. http://192.168.0.1:10000 or http://192.168.0.1:10000/ depending on circumstances.

How do I approach my local web interface(s) from a URL

1 Answers1