Web Server

Here's my problem:

I want to set up my computer to be a web server, so I don't have to abide by some free provider's rules. I got a program that allows me to do this and began building my site. The only problem is that nobody can access my site from outside my network. I can access the site from within the network using my internet IP, so I know my router is forwarding port 80 to my address. I checked all the other settings on my router, and they look OK. This leads me to believe that my cable modem provider is blocking that port. Is there any way I can get around this, like set it up to listen to a different port or something? Sorry if I sound stupid. I learned everything I know from experience, so there are holes in what I know.

If you give some more details i might be able to help - what sort of router? what's the "program" you use as a webserver? I hope for your sake your using linux or at least NT/2000, hosting on 9x isn't a great idea.

I use a Linksys router, and the program I use is called Xitami. And yes, I do run it off of Windows 2000. I know how much the 9x series sucks.

Well i don't know if i'd go as far as to say windows 9x sucks, its all about the right tools for the job, and for serving up webpages - it certainly isn't the right tool.
I'm afraid i have no experience with either linksys routers or the xitami web server. I will say this though - the reason your able to see your webpage via its ip and nobody else can is probably down to the fact its a related connection, ie: you sent out the request so logically your router will let the reply back in, any other requests (from external ip's) are probably being dropped by the router.
Then again you did say you ckecked the settings on the router so i could be wrong, i know my cable modem supplier lets me host :-)

Really? What provider do you use?
Another reason I think that port is being blocked is that the terms of service agreement says that running web servers is forbidden. Normally I would care, but their service is so bad I figure they owe it to me (and they'd probably never find out).

The router probably blocks access to your network from outside of it, a built in firewall

You probably need to make an application mapping back into your Internal IP. Cheap, easy way would be to put your computer in the DMZ, but that leaves you wide open to windows related attacks. Not a good idea. But it might work for testing, just to make sure it is accepting incoming connection requests. If you are sure you have port mappings that are inbound back to the internal IP of the computer, then it might be the ISP provider. Easy work around is to simply pick another port (like 88 or 8080) and use it that way. If this still doesn't work, the ISP might have gone very extreme and blocked all inbound connections, which would suck ass. But I have heard of some ISP's doing this to prevent people from running any kind of server.

Casper:

Yes, my router has a built-in firewall. No, that's not the problem.

The router we have at work won't let us run a web page in side of it.

First, the current firmware in my router sucks, so it's harder than hell to get to accept my password to make changes. I was lucky to get it to forward port 80. Otherwise, I WOULD use port-triggering to forward a different port request to port 80. Port 80 works within the LAN, so once the connection gets that far, I don't have to worry about it. I have have to keep my router forwarding port 80 to my computer, since I don't think there's a way to get Xitami to listen to another port. I tried DMZ, but that didn't work (more evidence it's the ISP). I'm not worried about using DMZ because I also use Zonealarm Pro. That's not the problem either because it doesn't work whether or not Zonealarm is on.
No, my ISP doesn't block all inbound connections. I know this because I can upload files in my file sharing programs.

Im going to try to reinstall the firmware upgrade in my router. Maybe it will be more agreeable to configuration changes after that.

This may be a little overboard with forwarding packets, but if they (ISP) are blocking incoming port 80 connections and your web server software only works with port 80, you might consider using a proxy that will forward other packets from a different port to port 80 for the web server. Example: you have your router setup to forward packets on port 8080 to your PC, you have a proxy server installed on the same machine with the web server, this one will intercept port 8080 and forward packets to localhost (itself) to port 80 (which is the web server) It's another bounce around for packets, but this might solve any issues with the ISP blocking port 80 for servers when you can't change the default port for the web server software. You might also see if the router can forward packets to a different port rather than the same port number........

And if I was reading everything correctly :) I would have seen that you already told me about the different port forwarding, strike the last sentence out :D

You'd have been better editing it yourself and hoping nobody noticed ;-)

Some Linksys routers have an option to block WAN requests, which prevents your router from being "pinged" or from being detected. I was trying to tell you this earlier but I had to leave. I'd check to make sure you don't have that option enabled. Otherwise no one could see you to connect.

Thank you all for your help.
Now for an update:
I have since remembered the little detail about DHCP. I have gone back to static addressing so everything will forward correctly. Oops. I have tried to turn off the block WAN request feature, but keeps demanding authorization, which it rejects. :mad: If anybody can tell me as to why my router might pull this crap on me, I would greatly appreciate it. :)

I had the same problem. Started a web server after i got my linksys router, and for the love of god couldnt figure out what the hell was going on, and why it wouldnt accept port 80 from anything out of my LAN. I tried every test i could and figure out that Earthlink blocked port 80 incomming to everyone who had a cable modem, and i assume any broadband service. They wanted me to buy a "business accout" to server, which is much more expensive. My advice to you is to set your port forwarding and web server to port 81 or something similar, or, if you are using Personal web server (runs off IIS 4.0 , and its free, and it supports ASP of course) or another server that doesnt let you change the port, sometimes they also use port 443 by default for a more secure connection, and that works for me.

By the way, something comming in from a file sharing app isnt gonna use port 80 on YOUR computer, if it even does on theirs. Port 80 is only for requesting web site info from a server, it is always sent back on the next available port on your system...is part of the TCP/IP protocal, i think, but its diffinitly in there.

Phison:

I never said file sharing engines use port 80. I brought them up to say that my ISP wasn't blocking ALL incoming connections, which somebody suggested.

Sorry, read it wrong, still hope the gist of the post helped...

What is the exact error message your getting when you try to enable WAN requests?

Jesas it took them long enough to let me post. good god i had to wait a week....

oh sorry.. Anyway about your router login problem: are you still using the default password or are you using a custom one? You said that your firmware sucks. Well if that means that is old could it be that the router's chipset battery is not so good anymore(assuming that router password storage is like CMOS). Just try the default login and password anyway to see if that works. I do belive that a LinkSys cable router's default login is blank and the pass is 'admin'.

I'm on the newest firmware. I have also tried both the default and modified passwords to make the changes. That's the hell of it. It just seems that I can't get there from here.