Ports

[HG Omnibus]

I'm looking to set up an HTTP server in my home. I'm only operating a single webpage, the rest of the bandwidth will be devoted to other hosting things.

Problem is, when I use port scanners to check for open ports that I can use, they all time out.

I already know that my ISP is blocking my HTTP ports, so I'm calling them tomorrow about that.

What can I do about my ports timing out? I pay monthly, so I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to use the service I pay for. I simply don't know what's going on.

Is this caused by my ISP messing with my connection, or, is it because of something else, perhaps because I have a dynamic external IP address?

Any input would be appreciated, and greatly thanked for!

 

[riser]

When you port scan from an external service against your computer/router, it will time out.

The only way it won't time out if is the port is actively listening for a connection requested from your computer.

On your router, you'll have to use either Port Triggering or Port Forwarding. For example, HTTP uses port 80 so you'll want to Port Forward TCP/UDP port 80 to the IP address of your PC, probably 192.168.1.100.

When you request soemthing from the internet, the response is sent to your PC, thus opening the port for listening. With your HTTP server, when a request comes in, the port forwarding will rediect all that traffic to your HTTP server which, as long as its running, will be listening on port 80 for requests.

If you have a dynamic IP address, you may want to use a 3rd party solution like dynamicdns.com to register your web address against an ever changing IP address. Confirm that your external IP address changes though by checking either your Router or your public IP address.

Chances are the lease is 7 days and will only re-register and not change.

 

[HG Omnibus]

Thank you for the response. You've cleared some things up.

I already have my DynDNS set up. I'll have to manually change my specified IP address for that URL every time it changes, correct? I know my internal addresses well. It's actually quite odd, everyone seems to have a "1" after 168, but I have a zero. Meh, doesn't make a difference, it functions the way it should.

So, you're saying that I need to configure Apache2 to run on a specified port and run it before I can sniff that port?

Well, I already know that my IP address changes. We just recently had a catastrophic outage because some drunkard ran into a telephone pole while drunk on the fourth of July, and it had changed. So you're saying I shouldn't even bother with a static public IP address?

And, in the event that my ISP is an arse and doesn't unblock port 80, what sort of solution could I use, then?

 

[riser]

They shouldn't have port 80 blocked - that's internet traffic. Actually they should have 1-1023 open since they are standard ports.

Setup your HTTP server to actively listen for connections and the port scan should show up as long as your router (if using one) has port forwarding or port triggering setup and pointing to your 192.168 address.

*192.168.1.x tends to be Linksys.
*182.168.0.x tends to be Dlink.

DynDNS might have a program that you install or run on your PC to pump out your external IP address.. or it reaches out or something. Its supposed to automatically do the updating and you shouldn't have to worry about it.

Apache, when running, should actively search for any requests on port 80.

Check to make sure you can access your Apache website internally on your private network. Once you can do that, try from a public address (instead of putting a name, use the public IP address). That should route to your HTTP server.