Opening ports on my router...

[andydude117]

I make songs on GarageBand a lot, and I wanted some of my friends to be able to download them. I couldn't find a free hosting thing, and then I found out about the Personal Web Sharing in OS 10.3. I set everything up, but my friends couldn't see it on their computer. I knew it had something to do with ports, and it said it was using ports 427 and 80. 80 is already opened obviously, but I have to open 427. When I go into my router settings, I don't know what to put. It looks like this:

Port ID Service Ports Server IP Enable
1 [ ] 192.168.123.[ ] [x]

I know that I put the port under "Service Ports," but what do I put for the last part in Server IP?

Thanks,
Andy

 

[Jiminy777]

I have a Netgear router and was able to set my websharing only through port 80.

What kind of router do you have?

Are you using port forwarding to your MAC's ip address?

I'm fairly new with routers but I've learned a lot in the last several weeks when I got my home network up and running.

Here is what I did that was simple. I loaded all the files I wanted to share in the root folder on my MAC. Then I created a simple webpage with links to the files. You can email the html file to your friends and they should be able to upload the files only using port 80.

Good Luck.

 

[andydude117]

I have an Asante router, and I don't know what port forwarding is. lol.

I created a little site with some files on it on my computer in the Sites folder, (That's where System Preferences tells you to put it) but nobody else can see it. My friend said it said something like "Can't Connect."

Thanks

 

[Jiminy777]

Here is a quick link I found through google.

http://www.haxial.com/faq/routerconfig/asante/
(ignore the details of the website)

You should have Port 80 listed there with the ip address of your MAC.

Do you know if you are using your MAC on a static ip address? That way you can tell the router to port forward to your MAC on that ip address. Static ip will not change if you have multiple PCs in your network and the router is set up to use DHCP.

 

[andydude117]

That guide was pretty helpful, but my friends are still having the same problem accessing the site. I also don't know what a static ip address is and I don't know if I have one. I know I have Optimum Online, and my router goes to my Dad's computer and my computer.

Also, the guide says to that your ip address should be like 192.168.123.[something] but when I go to ipchicken.com it says it's 68.193.117.129. (I don't know if that number is confidential or someone could hack into my computer, I hope not) And when I go into the System Preferences, it tells me that my site would be at 192.168.123.146.

 

[Jiminy777]

To explain ip address in short: Your internet service provider (ISP) has an ip address to your cable/DSL modem (external ip - for the world). Your router then assigns an ip address(es) to your internal network ..usually 192.168.x.x ...
You can configure your MAC to only use one specific ip address (that's what a STATIC ip is) this way it the router never changes it.

Here is a link on how to do it... (BUT do NOT use their information but your)
http://www.its.caltech.edu/net/statmacx.html

You might want to learn a little more about your router and read up on how to disable DHCP (this assigns ip addresses to your computers in your network)

But for now just use 192.168.123.x that is currently has and set up your router to forward PORT 80 to 192.168.123.x

You might want to get a domain name so your friends can get to your MAC. You can sign up with http://No-ip.com or http://dyndns.org ... this way you can have a web address like this ... http://MYMAC.no-ip.com instead of using http://68.193.117.129 for your computer (external - given by the ISP)

Do you have any html files in the folder you are sharing for your friends?