Making web pages hosted in RPi accessible over the internet

[Paul Beard]

Hi all,

I am attempting to make a web server hosted on a Raspberry Pi accessible via the internet. The web pages can be viewed OK over my LAN. The raspberry Pi is connected to my router, a Dovado 4GR, with a network cable.

In Port Forwarding I have set:

Ports     Protocol     Destination Address     Destination Port    
8080     TCP/UDP    192.168.0.160    80

In DHCP menu I have set:

Static Address Assignments
    Type     Host     IP Address
Raspberry Pi    MAC    b8:27:eb:17:33:81    192.168.0.160

In DNS I have set:

Service provider URL:    duckdns.org
Username:    paul.r.beard@googlemail.com
Password:    ••••••••
My domain:     granary.duckdns.org

However, I cannot access the web pages via granary.duckdns.org:8080, my browser just hangs.

When I log into DuckDNS, I can see that my IP address has not been updated to match the address showing at the top of the 4GR pages. If I manually update this address, I can then ping as follows:

ping granary.duckdns.org
PING granary.duckdns.org (100.111.132.116) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 100.111.132.116: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.770 ms
64 bytes from 100.111.132.116: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.559 ms
64 bytes from 100.111.132.116: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.617 ms

This shows that the domain is correctly being translated to my current IP address. However, these ping times are much too short compared to pinging other sites and must therefore be only over my LAN.

I noticed that the port forwarding page says "Note: Not all mobile operators allow inbound connections, in which case port forwarding is impossible. Further information is available on www.dovado.com".

My questions are:

1. Can anyone tell me if port forwarding like this is possible with operator EE in the UK? My Huawei E393 USB modem is connecting on 3G because no 4G signal is available at my location.
2. Can anyone suggest why duckdns is not being updated with my current IP address? Did I set up the DNS settings correctly?
3. Can anyone suggest anything else I need to do or any tests I could perform to figure out why I cannot access the Pi via internet?

Thanks for any help and see you all on Tuesday!

Paul

[Paul Beard]

It seems what I was attempting is not possible. Using traceroute, I discovered that several of the hops needed to reach any internet site from my network have IP addresses beginning "10.". These are all "Private" addresses, presumably belonging to my ISP. Because they are private, inbound connections are blocked.

A user on the Raspberry Pi forum has given me a workaround. Its a service called "Weaved". You sign up (create an account) at their website. Then you download and install some software to your Pi following the instructions on their site. This allows you to connect to your Pi and view the Pi-served web pages over the internet (plus other options like remote shell).

Weaved instructions

This does not make the Pi-served web pages available to anyone on the internet, only to yourself, or other users with a Weaved account that you choose to share it with. This is all I wanted to be able to do (the Pi and my slow internet connection would not be suitable for anything more than very light traffic).

Paul