Ask HN: How to test a localhost (desktop) from mobile?

#1

Post by bazookaBen » Sat, Aug 18, 2012, 6:44 AM UTC

Any easy way to do this? I don't want to mess with router port forwarding

Re: Ask HN: How to test a localhost (desktop) from mobile?

#2

Post by bazookaBen » Sat, Aug 18, 2012, 6:47 AM UTC

SHIM looks pretty promising, and runs on nodeJS https://github.com/marstall/shim

Any non-nodeJS alternatives?

Re: Ask HN: How to test a localhost (desktop) from mobile?

#3

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 18, 2012, 6:47 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How to test a localhost (desktop) from mobile?

#4

Post by bazookaBen » Sat, Aug 18, 2012, 6:53 AM UTC

also found Drive-In, which runs on Apache+PHP https://github.com/scottjehl/Drive-In

Re: Ask HN: How to test a localhost (desktop) from mobile?

#5

Post by jongold » Sat, Aug 18, 2012, 7:37 AM UTC

On the same network? Assuming you're running a server can't you just got to your local IP:port? (or bazookaBen.local:port on a Mac)

Re: Ask HN: How to test a localhost (desktop) from mobile?

#6

Post by MattBearman » Sat, Aug 18, 2012, 8:25 AM UTC

If you're on the same lan it's as simple as going to the IP address of the local server on your phone.

I recently tried exactly this. Running MAMP on my MacBook pro, went to 192.168.0.5 (my MacBook's IP address) on my iPhone while connected to the same wifi as the MacBook and there was the MAMP localhost page.

The only problem is (as far as I know) there's no way to edit /etc/hosts on an iPhone (although I imagine you can do it on Android), so it has to be IP based.

Re: Ask HN: How to test a localhost (desktop) from mobile?

#7

Post by bazookaBen » Sat, Aug 18, 2012, 5:50 PM UTC

MattBearman wrote: post #6

If you're on the same lan it's as simple as going to the IP address of the local server on your phone. I recently tried exactly this. Running MAMP on my MacBook pro, went to 192.168.0.5 (my MacBook's IP address) on my iPhone while connected to the same wifi as the MacBook and there was the MAMP localhost page. The only problem is (as far as I know) there's no way to edit /etc/hosts on an iPhone (although I imagine yo…

works like a charm

Re: Ask HN: How to test a localhost (desktop) from mobile?

#8

Post by pixelcort » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 4:32 PM UTC

If you are using an iOS device and your server is on the same network, you can use Bonjour/ZeroConf to quickly access it. For OS X, you can set the hostname in System Preferences > Sharing. Then just access hostname.local from the iOS device.