Website with access to port

[Charan]

Hi guys,
sorry for the n00bish question and hope webgurus here can answer to my question.

I am into a tricky situation , I have a program which writes data into to a IP address and to a specific port. eg., 120.0.0.1:1234 . currently I am testing it in my local computer so the program works fine, now I need to take this online.

suppose for example, I have a website www.abc123.com with a static IP address 123.123.123.123 , will I be getting a dedicated port for my website? or will I be assigned one when I buy hosting space. I also read that one can buy a static IP address for a website, if I buy a Dedicated Static IP will I get port access. Or should I go for a virtual server??

Regards

[rhitwick]

Al right let me try answering your queries.
(Disclaimer: its been 3 yrs I've read networking, so pardon my mistakes )

First of all u r not assigned a port address by your service provider. Every s/w u use actually communicates with your CPU (i.e. ur processor) with the help of a port. Every time u execute a new application it opens a port (its not a physical thing, its protocol or virtual thing) and communicates with ur CPU. Some s/w uses a default ports, i.e. in any system (windows based, linux based, mac etc) they use same port number to communicate to PC CPU.
Eg. Say Photoshop opens port 3456 in windows, then independent of user, pirated, original, black, gold edition of windows it would always use that port, for MAC it may use 6789, but for every MAC this no. would be same.

Now, web services are run by their web servers and based on the services/protocols ur web site is providing/uses (HTTP, SMTP, FTP etc) they use diff. ports.
For HTTP it 80, for SMTP its 25 so on and so forth.

So, u can get a static IP but if I also host my site in dat server, both of us can get the same port.

[kalpik]

^^ err what?! You need a port to communicate with the CPU?! Pardon my French, but your post is BS.. No one should use this post as a reference to anything!

Anyway, for Charan's query: hosting providers only open specific standard ports to the internet (80,443 etc). If you need a non standard port to be opened (eg 1234), the provider needs to open up that port in their firewall. This amounts to a security risk, and no provider would do that unless you are on a dedicated server or a VPS.

[Charan]

^^ what about dedicated ip?

[rhitwick]

Originally Posted by kalpik

^^ err what?! You need a port to communicate with the CPU?! Pardon my French, but your post is BS.. No one should use this post as a reference to anything!

errr....u missed my disclaimer.
That was mistake or "wrong" what I wrote. (sh1t, dat was too dumb comment)

It would be every s/w u use opes a port to communicate with internet, sometimes they even have privileges to run services like HTTP, FTP, UDP etc and opens corresponding ports.

If u do a port scan in ur PC, u'll find out a lot of ports are open, even if u r not at all connected to Internet, the ports will stay open.

[Charan]

We have decided to go with a dedicated IP and host the server ourself , no more head ache, only thing now is I have to decide if to use Windows 2003 or Windows 2008

[Ankur Gupta]

You still seem to be a confused between IP address and ports. These are two completely different things. On a shared hosting, you get a IP address shared by all websites on the server, but you can buy a dedicated IP address, if you need to install SSL or for other specific reason. In VPS/dedicated server scenario, you always get dedicated IP address.

Now coming to ports, on a shared hosting platform, only a handful on ports would be open for HTTP, FTP etc. but on a VPS or a dedicated server you have the liberty of opening any port you want.

It basically boils down to what port your application wants to use and also if it needs a dedicated IP address or not. Anyhow VPS would be best suited if the application is resource intensive else it can turn out expensive!

[PraKs]

lmao rhitwick

Why will processor communicate with the port ?

3 years in networking teaches basic buddy

[Charan]

Originally Posted by Ankur Gupta

You still seem to be a confused between IP address and ports. These are two completely different things. On a shared hosting, you get a IP address shared by all websites on the server, but you can buy a dedicated IP address, if you need to install SSL or for other specific reason. In VPS/dedicated server scenario, you always get dedicated IP address.

Now coming to ports, on a shared hosting platform, only a handful on ports would be open for HTTP, FTP etc. but on a VPS or a dedicated server you have the liberty of opening any port you want.

It basically boils down to what port your application wants to use and also if it needs a dedicated IP address or not. Anyhow VPS would be best suited if the application is resource intensive else it can turn out expensive!

My application will need a dedicated IP , because the application in embedded application and it can communicate only via IP address and ports.

What I really ment in my previous post is that we will take a static IP internet line and add our own server. we calculated that using VPS will be more expensive than setting up our own server with a dedicated internet line at our office ..