When setting up port forwarding, is it necessary to make the port listen?

[Avi]

Hi,

I have windows server 2000 installed on my machine. That machine is
part of a WORKGROUP set-up of 3 machines. These 3 machines are
connected to a router, which, in turn, is connected to a cable modem.
The ISP is Optimum Online. On the windows server 2000 machine I have
a personal website that seems to work fine within the workgroup (i.e.,
from any machine in the workgroup I can connect to that web site). The
problem is when I try to connect from OUTSIDE. Eventhough an ouside
machine can ping the public ID associated with the entire WORKGROUP, a
'cannot find server or DNS error' appears each time when I type the
public IP into the address bar of IE 6.0, along with the port number
to which the personal website is configured to listen to. Because the
router is a safe router, it implies, to the best of my knowledge, that
the router will not let any incoming connection (which is not part of
a connection initiated from my end to begin with) to come through.
Therefore, I employed Port Forwarding through the administration web
page of my Netgear router. I configured the router such that the HTTP
service will be directed to port 8008 on the machine where the server
is. I made sure that the personal website listening port is consitent
with the port to which the HTTP is forwarded. I tried doing the same
thin with respect to different port numbers.

Does anyone have an idea whether in windows server 2000 it is
neccessary to open the port (i.e., make sure the port is listening) in
addition to configure the port forwarding instructin to the router?
Perhaps I need to got to the registry to some location and open the
listening port? I would appreciate is if someone can help me in that
manner.

Thank you all in advance

Avi

 

[phoenix]

Hi,

I have windows server 2000 installed on my machine. That machine is
part of a WORKGROUP set-up of 3 machines. These 3 machines are
connected to a router, which, in turn, is connected to a cable modem.
The ISP is Optimum Online. On the windows server 2000 machine I have
a personal website that seems to work fine within the workgroup (i.e.,
from any machine in the workgroup I can connect to that web site). The
problem is when I try to connect from OUTSIDE. Eventhough an ouside
machine can ping the public ID associated with the entire WORKGROUP, a
'cannot find server or DNS error' appears each time when I type the
public IP into the address bar of IE 6.0, along with the port number
to which the personal website is configured to listen to. Because the
router is a safe router, it implies, to the best of my knowledge, that
the router will not let any incoming connection (which is not part of
a connection initiated from my end to begin with) to come through.
Therefore, I employed Port Forwarding through the administration web
page of my Netgear router. I configured the router such that the HTTP
service will be directed to port 8008 on the machine where the server
is. I made sure that the personal website listening port is consitent
with the port to which the HTTP is forwarded. I tried doing the same
thin with respect to different port numbers.

Does anyone have an idea whether in windows server 2000 it is
neccessary to open the port (i.e., make sure the port is listening) in
addition to configure the port forwarding instructin to the router?
Perhaps I need to got to the registry to some location and open the
listening port? I would appreciate is if someone can help me in that
manner.

Thank you all in advance

Avi

Hi

No, you don't need to do anything to WIN2K. As long as you have an
application that listens on a port then that's all you need to do. If you
have a firewall installed then you need to make sure that your application
can act as a server or open the port in the firewall. You may also need to
make some additional changes to the router as some Netgear routers drop
port 80 & 21 by the use of filters, which model do you have?

Regards

Bill