How do I properly test whether my Port Forwarding works?

Question

I have set up a website in iis which runs on port 5000

Now when I type 192.168.2.2:5000 I get that page.

Now, I do port forwarding with my Belkin Router using http://screenshots.portforward.com/Belkin/F7D2301v1/Virtual_Servers.htm

Now, I find my IP using http://whatismyip.com and I found it to be 117.x.x.x

Now, in my browser when I type 117.x.x.x:5000, fiddler throws me this message

[Fiddler] Connection to 117.x.x.x failed.
Exception Text: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not
properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because
connected host has failed to respond 117.x.x.x:5000

Answer 1

Try accessing your web server from outside your network. Many (most?) routers ship without "routeback" (possibly a vendor-specific term, I'm not sure, sorry) enabled, if they even support it, which is necessary for routing an internal connection attempt back into the internal network.

I have yet to see an off-the-shelf consumer-grade router with an option to enable this feature.

So what does this mean to you? It means that from within your network, you must use your server's internal IP (192.168.2.2); from outside your network, you must use your router's external IP (117.x.x.x).

A quick-and-easy check can be made using the Open Port Check Tool, although this only tells you if the connection on port 5000 is being accepted, not that it is correctly serving you web site. For that, you can try the HTTP/HTTPS Header Check; if it gets a valid response, you're in business!