Problems with forwarding and port numbers other than 80

[RyokoAsakura]

I have a dynamic DNS forward set up to get from my outside domain into my home to hit my vitality-goes RPi. I use different port numbers to forward different servers that I run. My vitality-goes RPi receives outside requests by going to http://sat.DNSSERVICENOTREAL.whatever:16000. This gives me the following: (Note: There is nothing in the drop-down for the bad data. It's literally blank.)

However, if I change the forward to come in on port 80, everything works as expected. (No need for picture.)

I've taken everything out of the equation except for vitality-goes seeming to expect port 80 being the failure. Everything works fine on the LAN IP as well.

Any help with this issue would be appreciated. Thanks for your time and awesome product!

(I forgot to mention that I can't just make the forward of port 80 go to the RPi as I have an important local service on that port and cannot make that change permanent.)

[JVital2013]

This sounds like an apache configuration problem - could you please share how you've reconfigured apache to accept requests on 16000?

[RyokoAsakura]

My local router takes the incoming requests on 16000 and forwards them to the Pi on the Pi's port 80. I'll throw my apache2.conf below.

# This is the main Apache server configuration file.  It contains the
# configuration directives that give the server its instructions.
# See http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/ for detailed information about
# the directives and /usr/share/doc/apache2/README.Debian about Debian specific
# hints.
#
#
# Summary of how the Apache 2 configuration works in Debian:
# The Apache 2 web server configuration in Debian is quite different to
# upstream's suggested way to configure the web server. This is because Debian's
# default Apache2 installation attempts to make adding and removing modules,
# virtual hosts, and extra configuration directives as flexible as possible, in
# order to make automating the changes and administering the server as easy as
# possible.

# It is split into several files forming the configuration hierarchy outlined
# below, all located in the /etc/apache2/ directory:
#
#       /etc/apache2/
#       |-- apache2.conf
#       |       `--  ports.conf
#       |-- mods-enabled
#       |       |-- *.load
#       |       `-- *.conf
#       |-- conf-enabled
#       |       `-- *.conf
#       `-- sites-enabled
#               `-- *.conf
#
#
# * apache2.conf is the main configuration file (this file). It puts the pieces
#   together by including all remaining configuration files when starting up the
#   web server.
#
# * ports.conf is always included from the main configuration file. It is
#   supposed to determine listening ports for incoming connections which can be
#   customized anytime.
#
# * Configuration files in the mods-enabled/, conf-enabled/ and sites-enabled/
#   directories contain particular configuration snippets which manage modules,
#   global configuration fragments, or virtual host configurations,
#   respectively.
#
#   They are activated by symlinking available configuration files from their
#   respective *-available/ counterparts. These should be managed by using our
#   helpers a2enmod/a2dismod, a2ensite/a2dissite and a2enconf/a2disconf. See
#   their respective man pages for detailed information.
#
# * The binary is called apache2. Due to the use of environment variables, in
#   the default configuration, apache2 needs to be started/stopped with
#   /etc/init.d/apache2 or apache2ctl. Calling /usr/bin/apache2 directly will not
#   work with the default configuration.

# Global configuration
#

#
# ServerRoot: The top of the directory tree under which the server's
# configuration, error, and log files are kept.
#
# NOTE!  If you intend to place this on an NFS (or otherwise network)
# mounted filesystem then please read the Mutex documentation (available
# at <URL:http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/core.html#mutex>);
# you will save yourself a lot of trouble.
#
# Do NOT add a slash at the end of the directory path.
#
#ServerRoot "/etc/apache2"

#
# The accept serialization lock file MUST BE STORED ON A LOCAL DISK.
#
#Mutex file:${APACHE_LOCK_DIR} default

#
# The directory where shm and other runtime files will be stored.
#

DefaultRuntimeDir ${APACHE_RUN_DIR}

#
# PidFile: The file in which the server should record its process
# identification number when it starts.
# This needs to be set in /etc/apache2/envvars
#
PidFile ${APACHE_PID_FILE}

#
# Timeout: The number of seconds before receives and sends time out.
#
Timeout 300

#
# KeepAlive: Whether or not to allow persistent connections (more than
# one request per connection). Set to "Off" to deactivate.
#
KeepAlive On

#
# MaxKeepAliveRequests: The maximum number of requests to allow
# during a persistent connection. Set to 0 to allow an unlimited amount.
# We recommend you leave this number high, for maximum performance.
#
MaxKeepAliveRequests 100

#
# KeepAliveTimeout: Number of seconds to wait for the next request from the
# same client on the same connection.
#
KeepAliveTimeout 5

# These need to be set in /etc/apache2/envvars
User ${APACHE_RUN_USER}
Group ${APACHE_RUN_GROUP}

#
# HostnameLookups: Log the names of clients or just their IP addresses
# e.g., www.apache.org (on) or 204.62.129.132 (off).
# The default is off because it'd be overall better for the net if people
# had to knowingly turn this feature on, since enabling it means that
# each client request will result in AT LEAST one lookup request to the
# nameserver.
#
HostnameLookups Off

# ErrorLog: The location of the error log file.
# If you do not specify an ErrorLog directive within a <VirtualHost>
# container, error messages relating to that virtual host will be
# logged here.  If you *do* define an error logfile for a <VirtualHost>
# container, that host's errors will be logged there and not here.
#
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

#
# LogLevel: Control the severity of messages logged to the error_log.
# Available values: trace8, ..., trace1, debug, info, notice, warn,
# error, crit, alert, emerg.
# It is also possible to configure the log level for particular modules, e.g.
# "LogLevel info ssl:warn"
#
LogLevel warn

# Include module configuration:
IncludeOptional mods-enabled/*.load
IncludeOptional mods-enabled/*.conf

# Include list of ports to listen on
Include ports.conf

# Sets the default security model of the Apache2 HTTPD server. It does
# not allow access to the root filesystem outside of /usr/share and /var/www.
# The former is used by web applications packaged in Debian,
# the latter may be used for local directories served by the web server. If
# your system is serving content from a sub-directory in /srv you must allow
# access here, or in any related virtual host.
#<Directory />
#       Options FollowSymLinks
#       AllowOverride None
#       Require all denied
#</Directory>

#<Directory /usr/share>
#       AllowOverride None
#       Require all granted
#</Directory>

<Directory /var/www/>
        Options -Indexes
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
</Directory>

#<Directory /srv/>
#       Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
#       AllowOverride None
#       Require all granted
#</Directory>

# AccessFileName: The name of the file to look for in each directory
# for additional configuration directives.  See also the AllowOverride
# directive.
#
AccessFileName .htaccess

#
# The following lines prevent .htaccess and .htpasswd files from being
# viewed by Web clients.
#
<FilesMatch "^\.ht">
        Require all denied
</FilesMatch>

#
# The following directives define some format nicknames for use with
# a CustomLog directive.
#
# These deviate from the Common Log Format definitions in that they use %O
# (the actual bytes sent including headers) instead of %b (the size of the
# requested file), because the latter makes it impossible to detect partial
# requests.
#
# Note that the use of %{X-Forwarded-For}i instead of %h is not recommended.
# Use mod_remoteip instead.
#
LogFormat "%v:%p %h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %O \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" vhost_combined
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %O \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" combined
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %O" common
LogFormat "%{Referer}i -> %U" referer
LogFormat "%{User-agent}i" agent
# Include of directories ignores editors' and dpkg's backup files,
# see README.Debian for details.

# Include generic snippets of statements
IncludeOptional conf-enabled/*.conf

# Include the virtual host configurations:
IncludeOptional sites-enabled/*.conf

# vim: syntax=apache ts=4 sw=4 sts=4 sr noet
ServerName localhost

[JVital2013]

That part of the config looks good. Can you try going to http://sat.dnsservicenotreal.whatever:16000/dataHandler.php?type=preload and see if it loads anything? It should be a bunch of JSON data.

I have a feeling this is an issue with how you're using your router to re-map the port. There's a few ways this can go wrong - for example, it will not work if your router does not support properly hairpin NAT and you're testing within your network. Unfortunately I cannot help you troubleshoot those issues - too many variables with how different routers are configured. You might have better luck reconfiguring Apache itself to use port 16000, and forward it straight through.

[RyokoAsakura]

http://sat.dnsservicenotreal.whatever:16000/dataHandler.php?type=preload does indeed show me a ton of JSON.

I expect you are probably correct about the router being the issue. No big deal, but wanted to check all troubleshooting off the list, which included raising an issue here.

I did try to change Apache to be port 16000 and the router to then forward it through from 16000 to 16000, but that just gave me the same symptom of broken things, AND added it being broken locally as well, when accessed from the LAN ip.

[JVital2013]

Oop, that's not good! If you open the webpage in Chrome/Chromum and open developer tools, are there any warnings in the console?

[RyokoAsakura]

Used Edge as it's the only Chromium based thing I have nearby. (I am a vehement Firefox user.)

[creinemann]

Just Hopping in this, I too am having a similar issue, if I change to any port other than 80, I get the 403 error on goes Vitality. I reloaded using the latest version of vitality on Windows 11. If I use 80 it works fine, but then I can't run some of the other web apps I have running on 80. Changing the port to anything but 80, in this case 8014, I get this error in Console: script.js?v=20230701:2267 GET http://127.0.0.1:8014/:8014/dataHandler.php?type=preload 403 (Forbidden)

yet I do get full JSON with this http://127.0.0.1:8014/dataHandler.php?type=preload

[creinemann]

I should add that the same error applies whether on localhost or internet.

[JVital2013]

Thanks for your patience - this should be fixed as of 4b2c09a.

@creinemann @RyokoAsakura can you test again with the latest commit? If it works for you, I'll push a new release. I want to make sure it works for more people than just me first!

[creinemann]

Yes, That did it I installed the new script.js and index.php and it work with port forwarding, in my case 8014

[RyokoAsakura]

I had to redo the whole thing for some reason, but after deleting my original vitality-goes install, backing up my /var/www/html/config directory and replacing it after re-cloning...it works! :) Thank you for the attention, @JVital2013, and happy to see I wasn't crazy since @creinemann jumped in as well.

For now, I'm going to leave this for @JVital2013 to close, but I consider my issue handled. Thanks again!

[JVital2013]

Sounds good; I just pushed version 1.5.1 to encourage people to update!