Hi,

I have set up a web server on my mac mini. I also have a dyndns account that I use with it. I am able to go to the site on my own computer and others on my network but computers off my network do not connect. I went through dyndns' troubleshooting file: http://www.dyndns.com/support/kb/why_cant_..._my_server.html and found that my isp must be blocking port 80. I followed this tutorial: http://homepage.mac.com/car1son/change_apache_port.html and changed my web server port to 50000...however the web server port does not actually change. I still seem to be connecting on port 80 when I use my machine and when I try 50000 nothing happens. Also when I use the open port tool that dyndns has, 50000 is refused (which means it can connect but there is just nothing there listening, ie no web server). What could be the problem here??? And yes I restarted the web sharing in preferences...

Thanks,

Matt

Hi Mat!

Did you have router, switch on your LAN? That's may cause you some trouble...

Port 80 is close by default by some (or 99.9%) ISP. You can use differents range of ports like you did. But the info what is you LAN and his components could be pretty useful.

Yes I have a router and a wireless repeater. I opened port 80 on the router and also a bunch of other ports including 8080 and 50000, both of which I tried to change my web server to but my web server just doesn't seem to want to work off those ports. Even though my httpd.conf file says it's using 50000 right now, I continue to connect to my site on page 80 on my computer...

Make sure the firewall is allowing it through.

You mean the osx firewall? Because that's off...

My first problem, before figuring out why I can't connect from a computer outside my network, is why computers inside my network are connecting on port 80 and not 50000 which is what I changed the httpd to. When I try to connect on port 50000 it says it doesn't exist.

Thanks for any more help,

Matt

Try restarting the server; i.e., reboot the mini.

That might do the trick for getting it to read the port configuration.

Cheers,

vb

Did you change httpd.conf correctly? You need to find the listen line and edit the 127.0.0.1:80 to whatever you want, ex 127.0.0.1:50000
Then restart apache, and the changes should take effect. How did you setup apache?

I am assuming that you have some type of modem connecting you to the internet (i.e. Cable Modem, DSL, etc...)

1. Make sure the port is opened on the Router AND Modem. It is called Double Router Forwarding (http://www.portforward.com/help/doublerouterportforwarding.htm). This can be avoided by bridging (probably not exactly what it is called), but it is the process of the modem forwarding the external IP address directly to the router. I recommend the latter, it will save you headaches down the road.

2. Make sure the Dnydns information is on both the Router (and the modem, if you did not "bridge" the two).

3. Make sure ALL antivirus software, firewalls, and traffic monitors are disabled on the Router (and the modem, if you did not "bridge" the two).

4. Make sure your NAT is open on the Router (and the modem, if you did not "bridge" the two).

5. Make sure you are using the right port on everything. (I also recommend not using 50000, I would use something obscure like 27834. Probably, no real importance though...)

6. I would avoid putting the web server behind the repeater. Just for the fact of speed. Plus, networking is a bitch (IMO) and the shorter the line of sight, the less chance of errors and stupid little problems...

Good Luck

I found DynDNS annoying so I dropped it.

My IP is largely static... it only changes with a heavy power cycle of my modem... so I always know when my IP will change and manually reassign my DNS records accordingly. Only have had to do this once in over eight months.

To avoid all the fuss with my router, I put my machine's IP address in the router's DMZ. Yes, completely exposed to the internet. I'm running Leopard Server, so the firewall included is more than adequate to block annoying traffic.

I found this beneficial to me in many ways as I don't have to constantly go into the router to allow ports that Mac OS uses... such as screen sharing over VNC, AFP, etc. It's great being able to access my computer from anywhere as I could within my LAN.


If you change the port of your webserver, you may need to explicitly declare the address in the URL. For instance, http://46.343.34.343:50000 or http://www.somedomain.com:50000. Not sure if this will prove to be a solution... I just keep http as port 80/8080. Like I said before, to avoid all the fuss.

I have had success in the past with my machine out of the DMZ. I used a Linksys WRT54G and now have a Linksys N (sorry, forget the model). The trick here is to point Port 80 to your machine's IP address. Or, in your case, the incoming will be port 50000 so you'll need to point port 50000 to your web serving machine's IP address..

I just realized this makes your change of http port pointless. If you're avoiding using Port 80 for incoming http requests, then all you need to do is forward port 50000 incoming to port 80 internal. Then point port 80 to your machine's IP.

And be sure to use a static IP on your web server machine to support this port forwarding.

It gets pretty tangled pretty quick, doesn't it?