How do I open port 1701 on my Mac?

Question

Level 1

22 points

How do I open port 1701 on my Mac?

I've got my Airport Extreme set properly, and "ipfw" is turned off/set to open. However, when I run the Port Scan with Network Utility from my Macbook on my local area network, neither port 500, 1701, or 4500 show up as open. Because I'm not seeing it from one mac to another on the local network, that leads me to conclude there is something on my Mac Pro, running OS X Server 2.2.1 and OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.4, that is keeping those ports closed. What could it be if not the ipfw firewall?

My hours of internet research have not otherwise turned up a way to affirmatively open a port in Mac OS X—only the ability to close a port using ipfw. Please help!

Mac Pro, OS X Server, 2009 2.66 Ghz Quad-Core Intel Xeon

Posted on Jun 18, 2013 4:20 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Jun 18, 2013 6:28 PM in response to Engender

It doesn't matter if the ports are open or not. If a port is "open" but there's no service listening on that port, there's nothing worth detailing.

What are you trying to do, specifically?

Reply

Answer 2

Engender Author

Level 1

22 points

Jun 18, 2013 9:27 PM in response to William Lloyd

I'm trying to run the OS X Server VPN service. The service automatically opens ports 500, 1701, and 4500 on my Airport Extreme Base Station. It looks like the VPN service has been "listening for connection(s)" since 6:38 this evening. However, as I mentioned in the post above, a port scan does not reveal that any of those ports are open on the Mac Pro, which is running Server. I suppose I could assign some of the open ports to one or all three of those, but I'm hesitant to reassign a port that appears to be doing something. If I knew how to open a port, I could create an arbitrary one and re-assign in ...

Reply

Answer 3

Engender Author

Level 1

22 points

Jun 18, 2013 10:05 PM in response to Engender

Reviewing relevant comments, my guess is this is one of those mysterious issues that requires a reinstallation of Mountain Lion. It appears that there is some ghost in the Server program and my Mac Pro that results in the VPN thinking it is working and ready to go when, in fact, it is not. This would not be the first ghost in OS X Server and/or my Mac Pro, as you can see if you review the questions I've asked on this board.

I don't know if I have it in me to risk something else going wrong with OS X Server after the reinstallation. Ironically, however, the only thing I can get it to do is run a Time Machine server for my one laptop . . . but I had such a hard time getting Open Directory up and working that I am reallly hesitant to start over–even though I don't use Open Directory for anything. Maybe someone could suggest a good third-party VPN service?

Reply