How to run an Apache Tomcat Webserver on my PC and access it from a real Android Device?

What I have

I have a Tomcat 7.0 server running on my Windows 7 PC and I have a dial up internet connection. IP I get on whatismyip is 117.xxx.xxx.xxx. I want to use this machine to test my Android Application.

I access the servlets on my Apache Tomcat 7 via Android Emulator through

http://10.0.2.2:8084/MyServer

I want to access the Server via my real Android Device.


What I did

  • I'm using No-IP Free to covert my dynamic IP (I have a dial-up connection) to a static IP.
  • I changed the Inbound Rules for port 8084 on my Windows 7 firewall, but it did not work.
  • As suggested by @slhck I have been able to access my router and did Advanced Setup » NAT » Virtual Server Setup and on this screen,

    I added TCP, external and internal port both 8084, internal server set to 10.0.2.2. The "Service Name" - "Tomcat".


Firewall rules on your Windows PC and wired/wireless router will both need to allow incoming connections to port 8084.

On the router, set up incoming connections to 8084 to redirect to your Windows PC's local IP address (127.0.0.1). This is called "port forwarding" – look into your router's manual on how to do it.

Once your router forwards incoming port 8084 requests to your Windows machine, you can access it from the outside:

http://your-dynamic-address.com:8084/MyServer