How to set up web server accessible from inner network?

Install the web server... I recommend "Cherokee", or if you have a Mac, Just go to "System Preferences" and then "Sharing" and enable "Web Sharing". Let's say the Server in this case - has the address of 192.168.2.200.
Hopefully, you can access the hosts file on every machine, in which case you just put an entry for your thishouse server in each computer's hosts file... for example..

127.0.0.1 localhost

255.255.255.0 broadcasthost

::1 localhost

192.168.2.200 thishouse thishouse.com www thishouse.local

If not, you will need to "localize" the DNS resolution. You can use the "Server" for this, by installing a simple DNS server. I like DNSMASQ. A sample config might look like...

# Add domains which you want to force to an IP address here.

address=/thishouse/192.168.2.200

# Add other name servers here, with domain specs

# if they are for non-public domains.

server=/localnet/192.168.2.200

server=8.8.8.8 # google's DNS Server, to "go online"

Then you a: point your ISP router's DNS to your internal server (192.168.2.200), and aa: have it provide DNS at it's address .1, to the internal LAN, using the .200 server to actually resolve local and "remote" addresses... or bb: just use the .200 address on ALL machines to do DNS resolution.. Having the router do this is more reliable and doesn't require any configuration.

This is simple stuff, but it actually takes years to realize how it all fits together. Hope this helps.

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