Mavericks Server Part 5: Port Forwarding

06/12/13 07:55 Filed in: Technology

If you have a router and want to use a Server to access services outside your network you are going to need to learn how to forward ports in order to gain access to those services remotely. Routers function as physical firewalls on your network. They are designed to keep certain traffic out, allow certain connections to get outside your network, and to route all of the traffic to the appropriate location. A port is like opening a door through your router for a particular service. Each service has a door it likes to use and is assigned to use. So if you want to use a particular service like web for instance, you would open the door that most websites use which is port 80. If you lock port 80 and don’t allow it to open then you have no access to the web service.
If you are concerned about security and want to make sure there are locks on the door, you could set up an encrypted connection using SSL (secure socket layer) certificates which we will cover in a future screen cast. This service changes the door to port 443 for web service and secures the connection between the two machines. It also validates identity and works like a key to the door.

In this screencast I cover how to set up port forwarding using an AEBS and letting the Server App handle the set up. The beauty of using OS X Server with an AEBS is the port management is built into the app and the ports are opened and closed without requiring a reboot.

As always, feel free to leave a comment here or on my YouTube Channel.

Tags: Mac OSX, Mavericks, Server