Network's DNS queries redirection to localhost

Question

Before saying anything, I would like you to know that my experience in the field of network administration is about 3 days long, so please treat me like the newbie I am. I have also been looking around 2 of these 3 days trying to find the best way to achieve my objective, and I have found similar questions around the internet, but I have not been able to do it.

I am running an Apache2 server on localhost:8080 from a Mac OS X fully updated Lion. This Mac is connected through Ethernet (interface en0) to a wireless Access Point. In the AP, I have set up the gateway to be 192.192.192.1, and I have given that IP address to en0. The objective of this network is redirecting anyone's http/https petitions to the localhost of the gateway, showing them the page that apache is serving.

-If before this point there's any conceptual mistake, please let me know-

As far as I have understood, the best way to do this redirection is using the pf.conf file and pfctl, but the man page of pf.conf left me with a bit of a WTF face. I have found in freebsdonline.com these instructions to do something similar:

# --------- pf.conf ----------
int_if="fxp0"
ext_if="fxp1"

rdr on $int_if inet proto tcp from any to any port www -> 127.0.0.1 port 8080
pass in on $int_if inet proto tcp from any to 127.0.0.1 port 8080 keep state
pass out on $ext_if inet proto tcp from any to any port www keep state
# ------- end pf.conf -------

The thing is that this pf.conf seems to be forwarding packets between 2 interfaces, and I dont need that (do I?). Could you help me to adapt, or at least understand that lines? And is there anything else I need to do once that lines have been added to pf.conf?

P.S: If you know any easier way of doing this redirection stuff, I'll be glad to hear it. I though about using dnsspoof, but I haven't been able to find it for OSX.

Answer 1

Since you didn't mention it, I would make sure to navigate to:

/private/etc/apache2/  

and open (using your text editor of choice; vi/m works, of course)

httpd.conf  

Once you're there, make sure that lines 39 and 40 (or thereabouts) read:

Listen *your_web_site's_address*:8080  
Listen 8080  

If it reads

Listen 12.34.56.78:80  
Listen 80  

Then that is certainly a big part of your problem, as the server is listening on the wrong port altogether. As always, make sure to properly configure your firewall(s)!