Windows 7 running as server - windows

I'm developing a program using Windows 7. There are WCF services (soap, rest) that are used by currently by Silverlight but very soon I'll start development of the mobile application that would make use of these services.
On day to day basis I use Mac and Apache to host my website, but during the development of this program I would like to use IIS7 to put my services online. I have absolutely no problems to access all the services via localhost but as soon as I'm trying to connect through the internet I get "The connection has timed out".
I'm sure that my router is configured right as it works perfectly fine when I'm on Mac OS, but it looks like Windows simply blocks incoming connections from outside; I cannot even connect from another computer on the same network.
So is there a way of using Windows 7 as server with IIS7 or is it only possible with Windows Server? I know it might be like enabling/disabling one setting somewhere but I just cannot find it.
Please help.

By default, the Windows 7 firewall doesn't have a port 80 exception for IIS, you will need to either add an exception or disable the firewall to be able to connect from another machine.

Windows has a built-in firewall that is probably blocking the connections. Type "firewall" into the control panel search box to find the settings to allow stuff through/turn it off completely.

Related

Microservice HTTP port problem on Windows Server

We have written (in Go and Delphi) several Windows microservices, which respond to HTTP requests on specific ports in the 11000-12000 range. These are designed to run internally within the Domain or Private network of the client (i.e. not on the internet).
They run perfectly on all but one of our 50+ client systems, on OS's ranging from Windows 7/10/11 to Windows Server 2008R2/2012/2016/2019. The installation process for each of these services sets up rules in the Windows firewall to accept the requests to each service exe.
The one client system that they dont work on is running Windows Server 2016 Essentials. This is the only client system running that specific OS, so that may be a factor in the problem.
Even locally using a web browser on that system to query the services they dont work. The requests just wait for a while and then timeout: ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT.
However the same requests to the same ports at address 127.0.0.1 (localhost) work instantly - proving the services are actually running.
The mode of failure when the targeted service is not running, or if we address the wrong port, is different. In that case we get a quick "refused to connect" failure: ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED
There are no third party antivirus or firewall products installed on the system, which is only using Windows Defender with the normal Windows firewall. We've tried everything we can think of with the Windows firewall, including turning it off completely. Nothing we've tried made any difference.
We've tried using many alternative port numbers, but we dont get any success until we get up to the 49000 range and above, but we'd really rather not have to change from our normal port number range unless its completely unavoidable.
We've spent many hours trying to find any solution without any luck. We are really hoping that some bright person out there has some idea that will lead to finding the cause of the problem.

Windows Firewall doesn't allow an app to spin up a server

I have a .net core app that when runs, spins up a grpc server to listen for inbound network connections. Firewall allows .netcore app to run and listen for connections, but it doesn't allow grpc server to bind to any port. Even though I added a rule for the port in question to allow connections, I still can't get it to work. For other applications, firewall prompts me if I want to allow access to certain app, but for this case I don't get any prompt. How can I allow access to server that runs a server?
I wasted 2 days on this and finally got the answer. Windows update caused certain valid to use ports to be excluded and as a result I couldn't run any app that listens on those excluded ports.
Here is a link to Microsoft article.
Windows Update blocking ports

Work with Web API and Windows Phone

I am developing a solution that is composed of two elements: a web server, which publishes some REST services, and a mobile client, which consumes those services.
To implement the REST services I have used the Web API technology.
When I start the web project in debug, everything works fine. I can use the services by pointing to localhost:63954/api. A weird fact: if I change "localhost" with "127.0.0.1" or with the LAN address of the machine, 192.168.xxx.xxx, the server does not answer anymore!
Then, when I start the Windows Phone client, which runs in a virtualized emulator, it fails to connect to the web server! Even if the two components are running in the same machine.
Obviously, in Windows Phone I cannot use the "localhost", since the localhost of the phone is the phone itself. So I'm trying to use the 192.168.xxx.xxx address which is the address of the machine that is running the web service. But the mobile phone emulator fails to reach the webservice.
I need to run the Web Server in Visual Studio 2012, since I need to debug it, and to make it reachable from the Windows Phone Emulator, but I do not know how to do it. Can you help me? Any idea?
Thank you so much,
Riccardo.
EDIT: By following the link found here (Binding IIS Express to an IP Address) and by turning off my firewall I can run the web application outside VS12 and I can make it reachable from other pc in the network, and so also from the WP emulator. This could be a work-around, but I cannot debug the REST service in VS in this way and this is not good...
The Windows Phone 8 emulator works as a separate machine on your network, with it's own IP address and configuration. Therefore, for the emulator to be able to access your service you will need to make sure that the port you are trying to access is open for inbound connections.
As you mentioned the windows phone is running seprate in your client machine,One way of solving this problem is ,Binding your machine's Ip address to the Web Api,SO the Web api can be accessed using the Machine's Ip address.You can Bind the ip address to the project by using Microsoft Webmatrix.
So,You can access the web Api using the Ip address.Hope this helps.

Block all urls on windows desktop using win32 API

I am trying to develop one application which can block all urls using win32 api on windows desktop application.
So is there any api or any procedure doing programmatically so that i can block all urls?
It's impossible to block just URLs. If you want to make sure no one can access the internet the only way to do this would be to unplug the ethernet cable. (Or whatever is giving you connectivity) Here's why:
Blocking all DNS resolution won't stop someone from accessing http://206.132.84.265/
Blocking port 80 and 443 won't stop someone from accessing a web site hosted on a non-standard port.
Denying access to IE and installation of any other software won't stop someone from downloading a browser that doesn't require to be installed (Like a text browser) and putting it on a thumb drive.
Buying an expensive firewall that blocks HTTP traffic won't be able to stop SSL operating on a non-standard port.
Believe me, back in highschool I worked in a warehouse with a scanner gun and figured out how I could check my email with it (with a little help from my computer at home) since an internet gateway was on the same network.
If you want to block people from surfing the web, disconnect the internet.
I suppose you can do it using the Windows Firewall API
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Aa366453.aspx
You can do this using Windows Firewall Protocol. This is an API provided by Microsoft.
For Vista it's straight-forward, but for XP you need to do some work around, as examples are not available for that.

IIS 7 and ASP.Net MVC issue

This is a bit complex - so here we go.
I am developing a mobile web application using asp.net mvc and I need to test it locally on my iPhone. So far I have the first iteritaion of the site running on my local dev laptop. I created a virtual dir for the site under IIS 7 on the same machine. I deployed the site to that folder from VS2008. I open a browser and entered "" and the site cam up just fine. I am runnig a home network with locked down WIFI and both the laptip and my iPhone are on the network. So now I want to test with the iPhone but the site won't come up when browsing to "". I have another machine that is also on the network and I get this error message when attempting to browse to the site:
"Website (laptopname) is online but isn't responding to connection attempts"
I have a feeling that this has something to do with IIS setting and \ or application pools but have not been able to find anything relavent goolging. Any help appreciated.
There are some possibilities:
iPhone is not able to resolve your laptop by name. Try using the IP address of your computer in the URL instead.
The firewall on the laptop is blocking inbound connections from other machines. Check your firewall.
The IIS Website is configured with a host header localhost so it won't respond to requests to other hostnames. Check the binding for the Web site in the IIS Manager.
To eliminate possible network issues, you can create an ad hoc WiFi network on your PC and connect to that network to test.
Check that Allow Anonymous Access is set for the site
I suspect you are not alone, as I had this exact problem. I developed a small port opener I called "SharpProxy" that may make your local testing much easier.
Overview and instructions:
http://www.codefromjames.com/wordpress/?p=97
It's open source! Get code here: https://github.com/jocull/SharpProxy

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