Cannot deploy a ruby udp server and open port on ubuntu droplet

Hi. I have a working ruby 2.7.2 app that is a simple udp server on my local development machine which uses the ruby UDPSocket library. I have created a ubuntu 18.04 droplet and created a cloud firewall with a custom inbound rule protocol:udp, port range:7373. I have created a non-sudo user (m32_udp) and placed the app in /var/www/m32_udp/code directory with these privilages.

m32_udp@megazoic:/var/www/m32_udp/code$ ls -l total 24 -rw-r–r-- 1 m32_udp m32_udp 60 Nov 11 22:56 Gemfile -rw-r–r-- 1 m32_udp m32_udp 100 Nov 11 23:51 Gemfile.lock -rw-r–r-- 1 m32_udp m32_udp 368 Nov 11 22:56 client.rb -rw------- 1 m32_udp m32_udp 115 Nov 12 01:14 nohup.out -rw-r–r-- 1 m32_udp m32_udp 2194 Nov 11 22:56 server.rb

My ruby code (abbreviated) is

    @socket = UDPSocket.new
    @socket.bind("0.0.0.0", @port)

I have also tried entering my droplet’s ip address in the bind parameter. Also @port is 7373.

When I start the app as m32_udp user, netstat reports…

watchdog@megazoic:~$ netstat -an Active Internet connections (servers and established) Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.53:53 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:22 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN
tcp 0 0 192.241.196.39:22 97.115.135.18:59072 ESTABLISHED tcp 0 316 192.241.196.39:22 97.115.135.18:59064 ESTABLISHED tcp6 0 0 :::22 :::* LISTEN
udp 0 0 127.0.0.53:53 0.0.0.0:*
udp 0 0 0.0.0.0:7373 0.0.0.0:*

When I change the ruby code in my app to

@socket.bind("192.241.196.39")

netstat reports
udp 0 0 192.241.196.39:7373 0.0.0.0:*

In either case, I cannot see this port as being open using netcat from another machine. It is also not reported as LISTEN in netstat. Do I need to run this app with sudo privileges? Do I have the ip address correct in the bind statement? Thanks for any help that you can provide!