在具有不断变化的IP地址的便携式UwAMP服务器上的论坛/博客/ CMS /类似

Question

Use case : Using UwAmp portable on a portable hard disk drive. It's loaded on a windows computer on a wired LAN network (in a school's computer lab), and UwAmp is launched. There is a static website loaded with educational content (see RACHEL). The IP address is noted using ipconfig and students on other computers type it into their browser to access the site.

Mission: We want to bring in an interactive website here, where users can log in to their accounts and post content, comments, or edit wiki page, etc (nothing on the internet, mind: this is on a LAN).

Challenge: The IP address keeps changing; even the PC at which the portable server is loaded can change at any time. The HDD has to go to another LAN network on the campus on other days of the week. The whole folder will also get copied to other HDDs and travel to other schools and continue operation elsewhere. And so CMS's like Wordpress that seemingly depend on the full URL (which is the old IP address or localhost).. crash.

It's a portable local web server that's supposed to hop locations and not be chained to IP addresses. The solutions I've seen so far belong to completely different use-cases: they involve editing database tables or setting up aliases and editing the hosts file on all the machines including clients, which is just not possible here.

So, requesting help in setting up a changing-IP-address-proof interactive website (php.. wordpress.. wiki.. whatever works!) on a local server like UwAmp, with no configuration changes required when the IP address changes. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

So it turns out that phpBB and many other forums, as well as Joomla as a CMS/blog alternative to wordpress, have none of wordress's problems with changing URL paths! You have to actually test each one out to find out for sure.. there's seemingly no published parameter that specifies this.

I tested them in UwAmp on my home wi-fi network.. set up the site using "localhost" URL path, then browsed to them from another machine using the IP address. Could browse, register, log in, post.. it all worked fine.

I then moved the whole site to a sub-folder and repeated the test.. no issues. I then changed the folder's name mid-flight (ie, while I was logged on).. and typing the correct path in the URL bar returned me to the forum with the session still active!

The same worked from my small android phone too (on wifi).

Now this is what I call resiliency. Thumbs up for phpBB and family, thumbs down for wordpress. If they don't need full paths to work, neither should you.

Other forums tested that work in this use-case (no-internet, path changing): SimpleMachinesForum, FluxBB, UseBB. There were others that while being path-resilient, failed the test because they needed internet connection or a working SMTP server at user registration stage. (I tested around 7 total including phpBB)

A shout-out to all the questions posted about wordpress crashing on path or server-address change : use Joomla or something instead!