How to access CouchDB server from another computer?

Question

I created a couchDB on my computer, that is I used the Python line server = couchdb.Server('http://localhost:5984')

I want to share this database with two other colleagues. How can I make it available to them? For the moment, I am comfortable giving them full admin privileges until I get a better handle on this.

I tried to read the relevant parts of CouchDB: The Definitive Guide, but I still don't get it.

How would they access it? They can't just type in my computer's IP address?

Answer 1

In order to avoid NAT problems, I would use an external service like Cloudant or Iris Couch. You can replicate your local database against the common DB in the cloud and your colleagues can connect to it.

Answer 2

sure they can.

Start your server like this:

server = couchdb.Server('http://192.168.56.1:5984')

Where the IP address is the IP address of your PC. Find this out via the cmd prompt and ipconfig. Then they type in their python console

server = couchdb.Server('http://192.168.56.1:5984')

Yep, exactly the same. The IP identifies it for both you and everyone else. If you want them to access it in a browser then I guess you'll need to write that front end however.

If you are not on the same local network the the same more or less applies, except you'll have to add port forwarding into the mix.

Answer 3

I would use ngrok (https://ngrok.com/) its free and it will expose your localhost to colleagues in order to access the db.

once you download and execute, in the command line type ngrok http 192.168.56.1:5984 and they should be able to access it when you provide them the url ngrok returns, which exposes your localhost externally