Viewing your Ensembl instance

After running Step 4.2: Reload Ensembl website, your Ensembl should be running on the port you specified (default 8080). Assuming you want to host your Ensembl as a publicly facing web site, there are now three stages to make sure your site is working and visible.

On the virtual machine

To be visible anywhere else, the site must be running and accessible on the virtual machine (VM) it is installed on. The script in Step 4.2 includes a check for this but to be sure try running:

curl http://localhost:8080/index.html | less

Your screen should now be filled with the text of the home page of your Ensembl instance (type q to quit). To check the species you intended to import have been included, either scroll through the file of search by typing /species_name.

On the VM host

Now you'll need to know the IP of your VM (type ifconfig while logged into the VM to find this if you don't already have it noted down).

Then on the VM host (assuming it is a server without a graphical interface), you should be able to see the text of your Ensembl instance home page as before, using the IP you just noted down in place of the example below.

curl http://192.168.122.1:8080/index.html | less

If you are hosting your VM on a laptop, then at this stage it should be enough to type http://192.168.122.1:8080/index.html (with your own IP and port number) into the address bar of a web browser.

If nothing happens, or you see an error instead of the text you are expecting then the most likely cause is a firewall on your VM host preventing the connection. You will need modify your firewall to allow port 8080 then try again.

Everywhere else

This is beyond the scope of these instructions, but if you want the site to be visible to the outside world then you will likely need to register a domain, configure the DNS A-record to point your domain to the IP of your VM host, use the Apache/Lighttpd mod_proxy module to redirect requests to the VM and negotiate any institutional firewalls along the way.