How to check if a port is open

[Menelaus]

Surely there is more to shipping, than knowing what docks are free in a port? But yeah it was a very good joke, no really it rocked. I mean if you have to explain a joke it must be awesome!

Were it not for the fact that you're new around here I'd call you a ****. But then, ***** are useful.

[DogTown]

Were it not for the fact that you're new around here I'd call you a ****. But then, ***** are useful.

New? No no dear friend, far from new

[RichardCranium]

New? No no dear friend, far from new

Indeed, most familiar. One of three. Probably just the one.

Welcome back.

Don't enjoy your stay.

[DogTown]

The enjoyment is almost overwhelming?! So your guess to whom I am, is?

[Menelaus]

The enjoyment is almost overwhelming?! So your guess to whom I am, is?

Cybertwunt, perchance?

[DogTown]

Sorry, I have no idea who that is!

[DogTown]

Sorry all, a little experiment of mine. I am no sock puppet, just some who registered quite some time ago. I'm sure Ferret and the admins can confirm this. I thought it would be interesting to apply insults, phrase's learnt, term's learnt in one night to see how the community reacted.

Its funny but my comments tonight to NickFitz are how I see you all talking to each other yet its only a problem when it comes from an outsider!

Maybe you should all lighten up eh, else continue to be twunts!!

[Zippy]

Sorry all, a little experiment of mine. I am no sock puppet, just some who registered quite some time ago. I'm sure Ferret and the admins can confirm this. I thought it would be interesting to apply insults, phrase's learnt, term's learnt in one night to see how the community reacted.

Its funny but my comments tonight to NickFitz are how I see you all talking to each other yet its only a problem when it comes from an outsider!

Maybe you should all lighten up eh, else continue to be twunts!!

I think the problem might be that you are labouring the point.

Twunt.

[NickFitz]

Sorry, I have no idea who that is!

Well, you have been banned for quite a while, haven't you Lucy?

[NickFitz]

Which proves nothing, the OP had opened the PORTS... but to what? There is no way that being unable to Telnet to a port is proof that is closed!

NickFitz:~ NickFitz$ telnet forums.contractoruk.com 80
Trying 89.16.161.127...
Connected to forums.contractoruk.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
GET /technical/45397-how-check-if-port-open-2.html HTTP/1.1
Host: forums.contractoruk.com

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Sat, 08 Aug 2009 02:47:57 GMT
Server: Apache/2.0.55 (Ubuntu) mod_python/3.2.8 Python/2.4.4c1 PHP/5.1.6 mod_ssl/2.0.55 OpenSSL/0.9.8b mod_perl/2.0.2 Perl/v5.8.8
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.1.6
Set-Cookie: bbsessionhash=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; path=/; HttpOnly
Set-Cookie: bblastvisit=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; expires=Sun, 08-Aug-2010 02:48:17 GMT; path=/
Set-Cookie: bblastactivity=0; expires=Sun, 08-Aug-2010 02:48:17 GMT; path=/
Expires: 0
Cache-Control: private, post-check=0, pre-check=0, max-age=0
Pragma: no-cache
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1

{snip a load of gubbins}
                <!-- message -->
                <div id="post_message_913169">Which proves nothing, the OP had opened the PORTS... but to what? There is no way that being unable to Telnet to a port is proof that is closed!</div>
                <!-- / message -->
{snip a load more gubbins}

Port 80 on forums.contractoruk.com is open, I used a Telnet client to establish a connection, send the appropriate HTTP request, and get the page as a response. If I had been unable to use a Telnet client to do that, I would regard it as a reasonable assumption that port 80 was not open.