Digiweb and Port Forwarding

BlackWizard

I just got broadband from digiweb.

They have the receiver on the roof and it's connected to a modem via cable.

I'd like to access the modem and setup port forwarding but I can't seem to be able to log into the modem. Anyone know how to do this?

jor el

It's not a router, so you don't access it a d you can't set up forwarding. You don't even need to. Any port that you find not opened, is being blocked by Digiweb, and you won't be able to change that.

If you install your own router you will be able to set up NAT, but as it stands, everything should be open.

I'm assuming this is Metro.

BlackWizard

Yes it's Metro.

Basically I was just testing ports like 80 and 21. They seemed to be blocked..

Now maybe they aren't. I was using this site http://www.canyouseeme.org/ to see if they were open. I might of tried to telnet the port also, but I can't remember.

So you think that most of the ports should really be open anyway?

jor el

They're probably blocking those ports because they don't want you running a server from home. This is most likely against their terms, and if they find you getting around it, they may disconnect you.

With Digiweb's very low cap, running a server would be a very bad idea anyway.

There's no routing being done in the Metro modem, so anything that is opened will be coming straight through to any connected device. For that reason, adding a router is a good idea anyway, as it will block ports by default, unless you open up specific ones and forward them to your computer's address.

BlackWizard

I rang digiweb there. They are not blocking any ports.

So I guess it's on my end. Any idea how I can check if ports are open to my computer? Telnet is probably the best way right? I'm not at home so I'll have to test this all later.

My traffic quota is 80gigs so I'm not worrying too much about that. I'll have a few servers and a VPN running. But they won't use up much traffic. I have a router but I'm not using it because of this port issue. I'm plugging straight into the modem to minimise any potential router issues.

watty

I think only a few stupid Windows LAN ports are blocked, for security. Such as Port 139.

You're mad to run a Webserver from Home. Far cheaper on bandwidth to rent data centre space.


We have Port 80 mapped to our server's 1194 port using a NAT/Firewall.

Get a decent Ethernet Router to add security at once (not a Router with built in DSL modem). All ports are open as the Metro Modem for Data is just a Modem.


A port will appear closed on remote scan if you have no service running on it. This may be the source of your confusion.

Go here http://www.grc.com/intro.htm and find the Shields up tool.

Their scan only makes sense if you actually have a service running on a port.

Some places (WiFi Hotspots, offices, Colleges) block most outgoing ports so you can only browse. Which is why we have OpenVPN mapped to port 80 (you can change your client to use Port 80 without affecting browsing).

Using Metro since 2005.

Digiweb are mostly just concerned about Traffic. A home based webserver unless it's just for test, will have too much upstream/upload traffic (other people's browsing).

BlackWizard

The server is just for testing and in fact I transfer data via USB key to and from my home Just like the floppy disk days.

I'm not worried about security or bandwidth. I can sort these things out when I attach the router. The router had lots of a NAT mappings but I have to change them all now because of the new setup.

I've 101 ideas in my head now for trying to fix this. Biggest one right now is maybe windows firewall is getting freaky with apache even though I thought I disabled it the firewall on install. I have to wait till I get home to test this though.

Thanks for the VPN suggestion by the way. I might run it through port 80 because I think it might help reduce any issues on the phones.

I'm going home at lunch to setup remote access

watty

Then of course your webserver isn't public on Port 80, but will be on LAN IP on port 80 when you connect via Open VPN.

Also all your email and web browsing will be via the home IP/ISP and thus secure from snoops at a Wifi hotspot, and indeed allow sending email anywhere, even if the local SMTP ports are blocked or you don't know what the name of the SMTP is of the non-home network is.

You can then have testing of your webserver (on LAN IP only) limited to those people that have VPN access.

All port/server security then only depends on the security of the Firewall on the NAT router and your VPN setup, no matter how many services you have.

Our home W2K server has 3 IPs on one network card (2 are on same subnet). We have IIS/MS-SQL bound to one IP and Apache/MySQL bound to the other IP. MS Windows Updates Server updates all our laptops/PCs with rules we added (It needs IIS & MS-SQL). We have tested "standard" Linux installs later deployed on Hosted Linux Server with same settings of popular LAMP applications such as OsCommerce, VB, and Wordpress on the W2K box using the Apache/MySQL IP.

Also my W2K box does backups of the remote Hosted data daily including MySQL (I use a script on the remote box to dump its SQL to a file rather than direct remote backup of SQL).

BlackWizard

I had to restart the server because I was testing something. Turns out that restart actually fixed my problem I feel like a fool for not just restarting it.. I usually recommend that to everyone else

I still don't know what the issue was, but I'm glad it's stopped.

So far this Metro broadband from digi web has been great. Just miles better than the vodafone broadband I used to use.