27.3 Configuring the Firewall

Before starting and testing the Apache web server, the firewall will need to be modified to allow the web server to communicate with the outside world. By default, the HTTP and HTTPS protocols use ports 80 and 443 respectively so, depending on which protocols are being used, either one or both of these ports will need to be opened. When opening the ports, be sure to specify the firewall zone that applies to the internet facing network connection:

# firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=<zone> --add-port=80/tcp

# firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=<zone> --add-port=443/tcp

After opening the necessary ports, be sure to reload the firewall settings:

# firewall-cmd --reload

On cloud hosted servers, it may also be necessary to enable the appropriate port for the server instance within the cloud console. Check the documentation for the cloud provider for steps on how to do this.