Your server has a web application that should be accessible from the internet, but users report they are unable to connect. You have confirmed that the web server is running and that network connectivity is established. What should you check next to ensure that the firewall is not blocking the web application's traffic?
Verify that the firewall rules allow traffic on ports 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS).
Use a network scanner to detect open ports on the server.
Check the listening ports to ensure the server is listening on the correct interface.
Restart the web server service to ensure it is not a service issue.
When users report that they cannot connect to a web-facing application despite the service running and network connectivity being established, the next step is to check the firewall rules to ensure that traffic on the port used by the web application is not being blocked. In the case of a typical web application, you would check for rules that allow traffic on ports 80 and 443 for HTTP and HTTPS, respectively. If these rules are not present or are misconfigured, the firewall would prevent external users from connecting to the application. Checking the status of a service or the ports being listened on, while potentially useful in other scenarios, would not address a firewall configuration issue.
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