How to detect filtered (and opened) outgoing ports on a network?

Sometimes you want to access services running on unusual ports, like a SSH server running on port 2222 for example. If connection fails, how can we detect the outgoing ports that are filtered or open on the network?

Well, there is a solution: http://portquiz.net/

This server listens on all ports for incoming connections. So you can test for filtered outgoing ports using nmap, netcat, wget or curl. And on windows you can use powershell.

Test with nmap

To test a single port:

nmap -p 1234 portquiz.net

Test popular ports:

nmap portquiz.net

To test all ports (very slow):

nmap -p- portquiz.net

Test with netcat, curl or wget

Netcat:

nc -v portquiz.net 1234

Curl:

curl portquiz.net:1234

Wget:

wget -qO- portquiz.net:1234

Test on Windows

PS C:\> Test-NetConnection -InformationLevel detailed -ComputerName portquiz.net -Port 80

How it works ?

On this server, there is actually a single (and simple) web server running on port 80. And there is an iptables rule to redirect other ports to this web server:

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -j DNAT --to-destination :80

You can find the details on the blog post of the author: http://positon.org/portquiz-net-how-it-works

This blog post is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0