Remote Access to my webserver

I'm trying to connect to my server remotely from outside of my LAN. I have a BEFW11S wireless router hooked into a cable modem.

I've asked other people who have the same ISP as me if they can connect to their webserver and they say they can.

I tried to use the W3C's HTML validator to establish that a connection could be make to my webserver (port 80). I noticed that I recieve a log entry on port 80 in the incoming log of my router.

The router is also configured to "forward" the packets to port 80 of my webserver.

The webserver is running the latest version of Mepis Linux and it has a firewall installed on it (iptables) which is controlled by the Guarddog user interface.

I can't seem to allow the W3C validator to get a reply from my server, why is this?

Also I scanned all the ports on my router using that Shields Up! thing, and it said that all of my ports are stealthed.

*Shrugs*

Thanks,
maskkkk

Hi Maskkkk. You've noted that your router has logged an entry relating to port 80. That probably confirms that your ISP is not the issue here. You will need to confirm that the entry is on the "allowed connections" log as opposed to the "denied connections" log. If you can confirm this, we will then need to look at webserver machine itself. You mentioned that you have a firewall installed on the webserver machine. Are you sure that the iptables rules allow both incoming port 80 connections as well as outgoing connections from your webserver (from any ports).

Lastly, have you tried accessing your webserver from any other external locations i.e. friends, home, work, etc. This is to eliminate any specific problems between W3C's HTML validator and your webserver.