Using a webserver and a wireless router without an internet connection.?

Question

My classroom has no internet but every student has a mobile phone. I have set up a LAMP web server on an old laptop and at home by setting a static web address I could log on through my wifi to my mobile phone and see the web page. 
I purchased a small USB powered router and plugged it in. Both phone and webserver are on the network but the web server page was not found. A bit of fiddling showed if I plugged the internet cable into the router the web server page is now visible when the machines are on the same network. 
But my classroom does not have a wired internet connection, Any suggestions how I can connect a standalone webserver to a wireless router? Router is a TP Link TR-702N

adaviel · Answer

If you have a regular wifi access point, then people can connect in normal (managed) mode.
You need something to run a DHCP server (probably the router does that) so that clients will get a private address like 192.168.1.5.
It ought to just work - if your webserver also has an address from the router, then people can go to e.g. http://192.168.1.2 or whatever your address is. Otherwise maybe there's a firewall issue.
You should be able to just connect the laptop and router with ethernet, though wifi ought to work, too.
If you want, you can run a local DNS and advertise that with DHCP, but some devices like Android are set to use Google's DNS on the internet and may not work properly.

Grant M · Answer

Found out if I plugged in a LAN cable to the router and webserver the static address could be found.  All set now to try out it out with the original Asus EER 901 netbook and sixty kids with mobile phones. Hope the little netbook can keep up.
Thanks guys.

Anonymous · Answer

Ad-Hoc networking... configure an Ad-hoc from your Wireless Device

Using a webserver and a wireless router without an internet connection.?

3 Answers