RCN's internet service blocks incoming traffic on port 80. This prevents you from running a webserver on your home network that is accessible from the internet, unless you feel like telling everyone to tack additional characters onto the URL. This article describes how to use a reverse proxy to serve traffic on port 80.
Steps
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1Set up your home web server on a port other than port 80. You can use Apache, nginx, etc. Verify that you can reach the server within your network by using another device to access it. For example, if you set up a server on a machine with IP address 192.168.1.101, using port 82, go to http://192.168.1.101:82 in the web browser of another device on your network.
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In your router's configuration, forward the port your server is running on to the IP of the machine it is running on. For example, if you set up a server on a machine with IP address 192.168.1.101, using port 82, you'd forward port 82 to IP address 192.168.1.101.Advertisement
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Find your network's external IP address: http://www.whatismyip.com/
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4Verify that your server is reachable outside the network by accessing the external IP address with the port you chose. For example, if your external IP address is 123.45.67.890 and you are using port 82, go to http://123.45.67.890:82 in the web browser of a device not on my network.
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Setup a reverse proxy server outside your network that sends traffic to the port you forwarded on your external IP. One option is https://github.com/yukinoraru/heroku-http-reverse-proxy deployed on Heroku. Be sure to change the configuration to point to your IP address and port! For example, if your external IP address was 123.45.67.890 and you are using port 82, you would replace "YOUR SITE" in config.ru with "http://123.45.67.890:82"
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Test your reverse proxy. Now you should be able to access your internal webserver on port 80 by accessing the URL of the reverse proxy server.Advertisement
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Tips
- These examples use port 82. RCN suggested the port 25 was open for this purpose as well.Thanks
- Refer to your web server's documentation to learn how to specify what port it should run onThanks
- Refer to your router's documentation to learn how to setup port forwardingThanks
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