Question

How to open port for specific IP (Droplet with VPN)

Posted on December 19, 2023
Nginx DigitalOcean Droplets VPN Firewall
Asked by Crafty-Codes

I have a Wireguard VPN on my droplet and want to open ports for my email server which is connected via VPN. As i have seen the firewall only supports opening ports for specific IP’s from the outside? So is it possible or should i route it? I already tried it to route with nginx with this but it did not work

# nginx wireguard config
server {
       listen 51820;

       location / {
               proxy_pass http://wireguard:51820;
               proxy_set_header Host $host;
               proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
       }
}

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KFSys

Site Moderator

• December 20, 2023

Heya @craftycodes,

In order to open a port there is something that needs to listen to it. Opening a port essentially means allowing network traffic to flow in and out of a specific communication endpoint on a Droplet. However, for that port to be useful, there needs to be a program or service on the computer that is actively listening to that port.

Think of a port as a door, and the service as the thing behind the door. Opening the door (port) doesn’t do much if there’s nothing on the other side to interact with. When a service is set to listen on a specific port, it means that it’s waiting for incoming connections or data on that port.

Anyway, in order open a port on your Droplet you need to use your firewall service, I would asume UFW.

First check the status