Joomla Website on Synology

[chp918]

Hi all,

I don't know whether I am posting on the right blog but anyway I hope there is someone can solve my problem.

I am currently using the joomla on synology nas and I finished my website.

However, I do not know how can I publish the website. I have register a domain name but I do not know what should I do next. Can anyone help me?

[pe7er]

In short:
Your NAS has an internal IP adres. Possibly something like 192.168.0.30.
Your internet router has an external IP address, that you can find out by visiting http://www.whatsmyip.org/
In the DNS of your domain you should create an "A" record for your website, and use the external IP of your router.
In your router you have to configure port forwarding: port 80 (= webserver) should be redirected to the internal IP address of your NAS.

Detailed information: https://www.synology.com/en-global/know ... DNS_Server

[chp918]

The NAS has a web station function to help me host my website.I have also set up the port forwarding.
The web station functions well.

however, I do not know what's wrong, the website only show "Error displaying the error page" . How should I know more about the error ? or what will be the possible problem?

Thank you!!

[pe7er]

Check if you can access the /administrator back-end
Same error? Maybe Joomla or PHP related.

Check if you can access /robots.txt which is a plain txt file.
If you cannot open that file then it's probably webserver related.
Or the files/folders in your Joomla site do not have the right permissions or user/group to them

[chp918]

I can access the admin back-end, the website is fine too if I connect it via the ip (i.e. 192.1xx.1.1/joomla).

After checking the robots.txt, I find the following para and I dont really understand what its about...

# If the Joomla site is installed within a folder
# eg www.example.com/joomla/ then the robots.txt file
# MUST be moved to the site root (my robots.txt is currently under joomla, where should I place it instead?)
# eg www.example.com/robots.txt
# AND the joomla folder name MUST be prefixed to all of the
# paths. (what should I do to prefixed all paths?)
# eg the Disallow rule for the /administrator/ folder MUST
# be changed to read
# Disallow: /joomla/administrator/ (what is this for?)
#
# For more information about the robots.txt standard, see:
# http://www.robotstxt.org/orig.html
#
# For syntax checking, see:
# http://tool.motoricerca.info/robots-checker.phtml

User-agent: *
Disallow: /administrator/
Disallow: /bin/
Disallow: /cache/
Disallow: /cli/
Disallow: /components/
Disallow: /includes/
Disallow: /installation/
Disallow: /language/
Disallow: /layouts/
Disallow: /libraries/
Disallow: /logs/
Disallow: /modules/
Disallow: /plugins/
Disallow: /tmp/

sorry that is quite a long para, I really appreciate if you read it and tell me what to do.....

[pe7er]

The robots.txt is a file that tells search engines what to index and what not.
See http://www.robotstxt.org/

I just asked you to open it in your browser to test if there was a problem with file permissions.

Can you switch off SEF URLs in Joomla and disable .htaccess (by renaming it to htaccess.old or something similar)
Does the front-end work okay now?

[chp918]

Where can I find the SEF URLs?

I have already disable .htaccess

should I also follow the instruction in the robots.txt? (I have done anything yet so the front-end is not working )

[chp918]

After disabling the .htaccess, I cannot access the website's back-end by using the ip, what's wrong with that?

[pe7er]

You can disable SEF URLs in Joomla's Global Configuration
See also: https://docs.joomla.org/Making_your_sit ... e_Friendly

Joomla's back-end does not work with SEF links.
If the back-end works okay, but you have problems on the front-end with SEF enabled, then the problem is probably SEF related.

[pe7er]

should I also follow the instruction in the robots.txt? (I have done anything yet so the front-end is not working )

No, only if the website is working, if it's accessible from the internet and if you want your pages indexed by search indexes, then checking your robots.txt is a good idea.

[chp918]

You can disable SEF URLs in Joomla's Global Configuration
See also: https://docs.joomla.org/Making_your_sit ... e_Friendly

Joomla's back-end does not work with SEF links.
If the back-end works okay, but you have problems on the front-end with SEF enabled, then the problem is probably SEF related.

However, after I changed the .htaccess to htaccess.old, the back-end does not work as well.....
Now I am not able to access my website neither way(both back-end nor front-end)
I thought to change the file name back to htaccess but it does not allow me to.

The website now shows "Error displaying the error page" no matter I am trying to use my ip or my domain or use the admin account to access it

What should I do now?

[gws]

FYI. Do you have a fixed IP for your router? Most people do not.If not every time your router reboots/restarts you will have a different IP and the A record will be incorrect and the webserver will not function correctly.
IMO, you would be better off hosting your website via a hosting company and not via your NAS.

[chp918]

FYI. Do you have a fixed IP for your router? Most people do not.If not every time your router reboots/restarts you will have a different IP and the A record will be incorrect and the webserver will not function correctly.
IMO, you would be better off hosting your website via a hosting company and not via your NAS.

I really dont know whether I have a fixed IP for the router. I will check. Thank you.

However, as mentioned, after changing the .htaccess to htaccess.old, I am not able to access my website neither back-end or front-end.What's wrong with that?

I do not know what should I do.....I spent plenty of time to create my joomla website and now I cannot even access it as administrator.

[gws]

What is stopping you renaming the htaccess.old ?

[chp918]

What is stopping you renaming the htaccess.old ?

I cannot rename it to .htaccess ,it said I need a name for the file .

[gws]

Open it in notepad++ (free to download if you don't have it) choose save as .htaccess but choose "save as type" "all types (.)" and it will allow you to save it,then put it back in your root folder.

[chp918]

Open it in notepad++ (free to download if you don't have it) choose save as .htaccess but choose "save as type" "all types (.)" and it will allow you to save it,then put it back in your root folder.

Thank you! It works now, I can access my website using my admin account or ip .

but still I cannot access using the domain.

Even I tried the method suggested by Peter, to turn off the SEF in global configuration, it doesn't seem to be work.

I checked my router, there should be an ip associated with my router, because every time I set up my router(like setting port forwarding) I am using that IP to access the setting of my router.

Will there be any problem if I am using the domain register on no-ip.com?

Its quite weird because to my best understanding, I have set up the port forwarding to my NAS before and it works fine, now I just need to point it to my joomla website and it cannot work.

Please tell me if I should clarify more or provide more information to have a solution. Thz a lot..........

[gws]

reboot your router and check the ip address. And post the ip here.

[chp918]

61.93.156.29

Is that the IP you want?

http://router.asus.com/index.asp <<-- this is showing in domain bar when I access my router

[gws]

Is that the same ip address you entered in the A record for your domain name?

[shorty phil]

Does your internet connection use a static i.p ?? if not you may want to run something like no-ip

Also you want to assign the computers i.p in your router to your mac address. This is so your router does not assign your computer with a different i.p..

[chp918]

I know that is fundamental but in fact I don't really know what is the A record for...

When I setting the web station on NAS, there is no need for me to set up A record, it requires me to choose which file should be directed to if there is an access request to my NAS using the domain(that's to my best understanding how the web station works)

I think... the web station should have done every setting for me if I want to host the website on my nas, that is also why I want to host the website on my NAS, that's more convenient for me and less expensive.I saw plenty successful case on the internet, which annoys me to wonder why can't I host it on my NAS

https://www.synology.com/en-uk/knowledg ... nology_NAS

I followed the instruction on the official website to set up the web station.

[gws]

If your domain name doesn't have A records,Cname etc then how does the internet know that your website is on your NAS?

[shorty phil]

A records are set at your domain registrar.

The a record is what links your domain name to your server.

The A record should be set to your servers i.p.

Go to where you purchased your domain and login then go to advanced dns editor . Add a new A record

[gws]

"The A record should be set to your servers i.p."
Which gets tricky if you do not have a fixed IP address.
I'll say it again,IMO you are pissing into the wind trying to use your NAS as a fully functioning web server.

[chp918]

If I am using a free domain from no-ip.com, can I still set up the A-record? If so, how should I do that?

Really sorry that I am not familiar with hosting a website

[shorty phil]

Create a free Dynamic DNS >> https://my.noip.com/#!/dynamic-dns

once you choose the domain etc it asks for your server i.p and what type of record you need to choose A record..

heres a screenshot to help

[shorty phil]

Hope this helps..

Just wondering with the price of hosting these days why you dont buy a cheap hosting package? Even myself i could offer you a shared hosting plan for pennies

[pe7er]

Just wondering with the price of hosting these days why you dont buy a cheap hosting package? Even myself i could offer you a shared hosting plan for pennies

Using your own NAS for a website is cool.

However the disadvantage of hosting your website on your own NAS is that you probably cannot use the energy save mode . The NAS should not use its "HDD Hibernation" mode to spin down the HDD when not in use. Booting up the NAS + HDDs might taken 20 seconds, something you cannot use for a website.

Instead I would recommend using a Raspberry Pi (with Nginx as webserver) for a home hosted website.

[chp918]

Just wondering with the price of hosting these days why you dont buy a cheap hosting package? Even myself i could offer you a shared hosting plan for pennies

Using your own NAS for a website is cool.

However the disadvantage of hosting your website on your own NAS is that you probably cannot use the energy save mode . The NAS should not use its "HDD Hibernation" mode to spin down the HDD when not in use. Booting up the NAS + HDDs might taken 20 seconds, something you cannot use for a website.

Instead I would recommend using a Raspberry Pi (with Nginx as webserver) for a home hosted website.

I bought the synology and hoping to utilize its function so I decided to host the website via NAS.

Besides, I think I have set up the A record when I registering domain in no-ip, just that I didn't notice at that time.
If I can use the domain from no-ip to connect to my nas, i think its actually not a problem to connect to my website... therefore I just want to try it out.