Q:

cannot access web server via IP in browser

I have recently installed CentOS 5.6 on a server of mine.
Looking at the installed packages, i could see the usual, httpd, php, mysql etc
With this in mind, I thought I could simply start httpd (service httpd start) type in the servers, IP address and i'd see the default apache config screen.
But, unfortunately, this doesn't seem to work. I have tried re-installing httpd (yum install httpd) reloading/restart/stopping/starting, but the connection to my server always times out.
I can ping the server, so I know it is actually there and not down/rebooting etc

A:

Your firewall is probably blocking the connection. You can try to disable it for testing (service iptables stop) or add a rule to allow connections on port 80.
/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -t filter -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT

