Port Checker
Check that your website is answering on the standard web ports — 443 for https addresses (the default), 80 if you enter http:// — and learn whether a failure is an active refusal or a silent timeout.
The report tells refused and timed out apart: refused means the server actively said no (nothing is listening on that port), while a timeout means nothing answered at all — often a firewall quietly dropping the connection.
An honest note up front: this checker tests the standard web ports — 80 for HTTP and 443 for HTTPS — and nothing else. PingStuff is not a port scanner. Probing arbitrary services like SSH or databases on hosts you may not own is behavior the internet needs less of, so anonymous checks stay on the two ports every public website has to answer. For a website, those two are the ones that decide whether visitors get in.
Within that scope, each check tests one port. Enter your domain as-is (or with https://) and PingStuff checks port 443 — is anything listening, and does it complete a connection? To test port 80 and the hand-over to HTTPS, run it again with http://yourdomain. And when a port doesn't respond, the failure mode itself is a clue — a refusal and a timeout point at two different problems, and the report labels which one you got.
What to do next
- If 443 is refused, the machine is reachable but no web server is bound to the port — confirm your web server process is running and its configuration actually listens on 443.
- If the connection times out, look outward: a firewall or cloud security group is likely swallowing packets before your server ever sees them. Check that an inbound rule allows ports 80 and 443.
- Once the port answers, look at the full picture — a port can accept connections while the site behind it serves errors, so follow up with an HTTP status check if anything still seems wrong.
Firewall rules have a way of changing when nobody's looking. Monitoring re-checks your site continuously over HTTP and HTTPS and emails you as soon as it stops answering — and texts verified Canadian mobiles.
Frequently asked questions
Can I check port 22, 25 or 3306?
No — the anonymous checker is deliberately limited to 80 and 443. Scanning SSH, mail or database ports across the internet is indistinguishable from hostile reconnaissance, so we don't offer it. It's also rarely what you need: whether your website works is decided on the web ports.
What's the difference between 'connection refused' and 'timed out'?
Refused is an answer: the machine received the attempt and rejected it, which almost always means no service is listening on that port. A timeout is silence: the attempt got no reply, which usually means a firewall dropped it, the address is wrong, or the host is down. Refused says 'fix the service'; timed out says 'fix the path to it'.
The port is open but my site doesn't work. What gives?
An open port only proves a connection can be made. Past that point the certificate can be expired, the application can be returning errors, or the wrong site can be answering at that address. Run an SSL check and an HTTP status check to see what happens after the connection succeeds.
Can paid monitoring watch custom ports?
Not today — PingStuff monitoring watches websites over HTTP and HTTPS, which covers the standard web ports. If you need to watch a custom service port, we'd rather tell you plainly that PingStuff isn't built for that yet than sell you a workaround.