Viewing my IIS hosted site on other machines on my network

Solution 1:

As others said your Firewall needs to be configured to accept incoming calls on TCP Port 80.

in win 7+ (easy wizardry way)

  1. go to windows firewall with advance security
  2. Inbound Rules -> Action -> New Rule
  3. select Predefined radio button and then select the last item - World Wide Web Services(HTTP)
  4. click next and leave the next steps as they are (allow the connection)

  • Because outbound traffic(from server to outside world) is allowed by default .it means for example http responses that web server is sending back to outside users and requests

  • But inbound traffic (originating from outside world to the server) is blocked by default like the user web requests originating from their browser which cannot reach the web server by default and you must open it.

You can also take a closer look at inbound and outbound rules at this page

Solution 2:

If you're hosting website on a specific port in IIS like 4321 then you'd have to allow this port through Windows Firewall too. Here're the steps that I followed along with the imanabidi's answer to get it work for me:

  1. Windows Firewall > Advanced settings
  2. Inbound Rules > New Rule
  3. Select Port > Next
  4. Specific local ports > Add the Port you want to allow
  5. Allow All Connections
  6. Enter a name and some description so that you remember it later on
  7. Done

Solution 3:

First of all, try to connect to the LAN IP of your server. If IIS is set up with only one web site, chances are that your site is going to pop up.

If you want to access it by name, you would have to add an entry in the HOSTS file of every client PC you want to view the site with (not to 127.0.0.1 obviously, but to the local IP address of your server).

Also, your Firewall needs to be configured to accept incoming calls on Port 80.

This is usually the point where it makes more sense to set up a DNS service that you can register names like "mysite.dev" with centrally, without having to dabble with hosts files. But that's a different story, and belongs to superuser.com or serverfault.com.

Solution 4:

Open firewall settings. Then search for something like - Allow program or feature to allow through firewall. If in the list World Wide Web services (HTTP) is unchecked, check it and restart the system.

Our machine is all set to accept inbound requests.