如何使用OWIN自托管提示防火墙例外？

Question

How is it possible to use a self-hosted server with OWIN and prompt for firewall exceptions? I am running this self-hosted server from a process which cannot guarantee administrator rights, so I can't just add the firewall exceptions programmatically.

I have done some searching and some people have suggested using the TCP listener to 'fake' a port binding to cause a firewall exception prompt to occur:

IPAddress ip = Dns.GetHostEntry(Dns.GetHostName()).AddressList[0];
IPEndPoint ipLocalEndPoint = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, 32454);

TcpListener t = new TcpListener(ipLocalEndPoint);
t.Start();
t.Stop();

This works and the Windows firewall prompt appears where I can allow my program to be added to the list, however this does not appear to be enough to allow my OWIN server to be accessed externally when I try to hit it from another machine when I start it as follows:

var server = Microsoft.Owin.Hosting.WebApp.Start<WebStartup("http://*:32454/);

Note that I'm also using netsh to reserve this url scheme in advance to allow it to work properly from a non-administrator account.

It almost seems that whatever OWIN is doing is outside the standard executable-based Windows firewall exception. Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong or how to do this properly and let the user add a firewall exception that will work with OWIN?

Answer 1

One solution is to open the port yourself by running

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Open Port 80" dir=in action=allow protocol=TCP localport=80

either using command line or programmatically.