I’m trying to set up a site using my new SurfBoard G18 with XAMPP. I was able to successfully open port 80 to outside traffic -- and verified that these ports were open with canyouseeme.org (see image) -- and ran the Apache web server, only to be met with repeated connection timeouts every time I attempted to connect to my external IP address.
I poked some more around my router settings and found that certain security levels found in the Firewall settings would block or at least threaten to block HTTP ports (though I’m not sure this was part of the problem). I turned the router’s firewall off just in case. There were no changes and I still only got timeouts trying to use port 80.
I experimented more and changed my open port to port 81. I connected as such. With no explanation, my external IP opened to that port and allowed my connection without timing out! What is going on here? Why is my external service visible to port 80 online but times out every time? Port 81 works perfectly, yet port 80 doesn’t. My theory is that there is a sneaky router setting that is somehow blocking port 80 unless you turn it off. I need to be able to use port 80 because my domain provider only redirects to that port. If anyone can be of any help, please advise -- until then, thank you for your time.
