Home Common questions How to open a port on your server

How to open a port on your server

Last updated on Jul 14, 2026

By default a new Gewape Cloud server blocks almost all incoming traffic. That is on purpose: it keeps the server safe until you decide what should reach it. When you want visitors to load a website, an app to accept connections, or to log in over SSH, you open the matching port by adding a rule to a security group, then attaching that group to the server.

A security group is a named set of firewall rules. You can reuse one group across many servers, so give them clear names like web for anything serving HTTP and HTTPS.

Open the port

  1. Sign in to the console at platform.gewape.cloud.
  2. In the left menu open Networking, then Security Groups.
  3. Open the security group your server already uses, or click Create Security Group and give it a name and short description.
  4. Go to the Rules tab and click Create Rule.
  5. Fill in the rule:
    • Direction: Ingress (traffic coming into your server).
    • Ether Type: IPv4.
    • IP Protocol: TCP covers most web and SSH traffic. Choose UDP or ICMP only if your app needs them.
    • Port or Port Range: the port to open. The common ones are 80 for HTTP, 443 for HTTPS, and 22 for SSH. You can also open a range like 8000:8010.
    • Remote Type: CIDR. Set Remote IP Prefix to 0.0.0.0/0 if anyone on the internet should reach it, or lock it to a single address such as 41.90.10.12/32 for just your office.
  6. Click OK. The rule takes effect right away, with no reboot.

Attach the group to your server

A rule does nothing until its security group is attached to a server.

  1. Open Cloud Servers and click the server you want.
  2. From the actions menu choose Manage Security Group.
  3. Move your security group into the selected list and save.

If it still will not connect

Check that the server has a public address (see Give your server a public address) and that the service inside the server is running and listening on that port. My server cannot be reached covers the usual causes.

One habit worth keeping: open only the ports you use, and set Remote IP Prefix to specific addresses where you can. Leaving SSH open to the whole internet invites constant login attempts.