pm2 works fine on port 80, but no other ports are accessible from another computer in local network (connection refused)

Question

I started pm2 server on my server running ubuntu 20.

To simplify the problem, I created a hello world app using node, like this (/var/www/html/pip/exampleserver.js):

var http = require('http');
http.createServer(function (req, res) {
res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
res.end('Hello World\n');
}).listen(3000, '0.0.0.0');
console.log('Server running at http://0.0.0.0:3000/');

After starting the server with 'pm2 start exampleserver.js', the server is started, and it works fine when I access it from localhost :

wget -qO- localhost:3000

Result : "Hello World"

But I get ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED when accessing the page from another computer on the same network (from http://10.200.96.23:3000, either from browser or command line)

However, when I change the script to listen to port 80 and restart pm2, it works just fine from the other computer (from http://10.200.96.23). It shows the result "Hello World".

Here is the result of netstat and ufw status that i've disabled in advance : netstat and ufw status

Screenshot of error connection refused : ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED

I tried other ports, but nothing works other than 80. I don't want to run this server on port 80. What could be the problem?

port 3000 is not open for the outside world that's why you are getting this error — aRvi

ariel1012 ariel1012 · Accepted Answer · 2021-04-05T18:08:25

Port 80 is open by default but not for other ports.
@aRvi is correct, you might need to open port 300 for that to be accessible.

Also pm2 monitor will help you see code errors and monitor your application.
This saves my day many times when debugging my codes in PM2

pm2 works fine on port 80, but no other ports are accessible from another computer in local network (connection refused)

2 Answers