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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-28T17:14:53+00:00

I’ve looked everywhere for an answer on this, but haven’t had any luck. I’ve

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I’ve looked everywhere for an answer on this, but haven’t had any luck.

I’ve installed node.js on my server. I’ve created the standard “Hello World” example like:

var http = require('http');

http.createServer(function (request, response) {
  response.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
  response.end('Hello World\n');
}).listen(8080, "0.0.0.0");

console.log('Server running at http://0.0.0.0:8080/');

After running the script on the server:

node app.js

I can connect internal to port 808 and see the Hello World message, but when I try to connect to port 8080 my server externally I get a “Can’t connect to server” error. I’ve also tried this in my listen function:

etc..
}).listen(8080, "204.xxx.xxx.xxx");

(with my real external IP address) and haven’t had any luck.

I’ve tried to accept connections on 8080 by adding this to iptables:

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 8080 -j ACCEPT

but still have hit a wall. When I run netstat I get:

tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8080            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      -               
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:80              0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      -               
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:25              0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      -               
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:443             0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      -               
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:3306          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      -

which I think tells me that port 8080 is listening for connections.

So — what am I doing wrong here?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    You are most likely behind network address translation (NAT).

    If you’re using a normal home internet connection and you have a gateway router, you can have multiple devices using your home’s internet connection (connected via Ethernet or Wifi), no?

    But you only have one IP address.

    To accomplish this, the router lets you connect out – but doesn’t let any connections initiated from the outside back in (simplification for relevance – read up if you want more information).

    You’re going to have to look at configuring port forwarding – you want external port 8080 to forward to your computer’s internal IP address.

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