I am trying to run a solaris 10 webserver(apache). I want my website to be "http://www.whatever.com" during my installation process of solaris i named my host for my server "whatever" and named my domain name "whatever.com"

is this right or do i need to make my host name "www" and dmain name "whatever.com"

my setup is my ISP---> cable modem---> router ---> my server(my router and cable modem are different pieces of hardware so i believe they both have their own ips. i have port forwarding setup through a static ip.

if my modem, router, and computer each have their own ip addresses, what information do i need to give when i register my domain name.

im thinking this: "whatever.com" and the ip would be my servers static ip address.
or would it be my gateway's ip address or my modems ip address.

so basically...how does the internet (a dns server) know where to find my server if my router is the one that resolvs my static ip address?

p.s. - i'm using www.no-ip.com as my domain registrar.

The server name and server domain is not very important as far as your webserver is concerned. You should however have your hostname set to something like 'myname' and domainname set to something like 'mydomain.com' - ie it forms 'myname.mydomain.com'. Don't include the hostname in the domainname.
I'd advise against calling your entire server 'www'.

The name to respond to (ie www.whatever.com) is set in your apache config file.
If a web request arrives directed to that name, apache will respond. This doesn't have to (and usually shouldn't) match your hostname.

You will need your ISP to assign you a static IP or find a way to dynamically update whatever DNS server you are using to provide lookups for your domain.

The domain entry has a couple of name servers set in it. If you are on dynamic IP, that can't be something within the dynamic range (no-ip and zoneedit can probably help you out with that). People looking for your website will lookup your domain name and get sent to the name server assigned to it. It then hands back the relevant IP address (which will be the IP your ISP has given you).
The web browser then goes to that IP, and asks for a webpage for the name it used (eg www.whatever.com'). Provided your router is redirecting traffic that arrives on port 80 to your server and server is running a webserver, it will respond. If the name used (eg www.whatever.com) matches the config file, the webserver will hand back something useful.

i reconfigured httpd.conf and it was working fine until i added a module to the var/apache folder. it's called "forms-lib.pl" and i need it for one of my perl files which should grab the input of a textbox from one of my html files and put it into the perl file for processing. when i try "Full/Path/Name/apachectl start" it gives me a syntax error at line 213 in my httpd.conf file which is where it reads the first module. if i comment that line out it just goes to the next line where it reads the next module and says syntax error at line 214. i deleted the forms-lib.pl from apache and it still wont start. is there a way i can just start with my original configuration settings for apache. i changed a lot of folders and moved a lot of stuff around. i basically wanted to use var/apache instead of usr/apache as my server folder. i'm not even at the point of registering a domain name yet. i just want to get this working again first.

*sorry if this isnt the right forum to go in

i got it working now. i changed my ServerName in httpd.conf from my ip address to my domain name and thats why apache wouldnt start. if you havent registered your domain name yet and u still want to test apache u need to put ur ip address not the domain name next to ServerName.

Actually, you don't need to use the IP to test.
You can still have the ServerName set to what you want, just add the same name and the corresponding IP to use to your hosts file. If you are browsing from a unix machine, /etc/hosts, from windows, search for hosts and/or lmhosts (I think) and add it to those.