Hi,
I have a tiny HTTP server application that I wish to deploy on Windows Azure, Windows Server 2012 VM. The application itself is made using C++ and Qt. It is listening on all network interaces on port 80. When it has pending connections, it opens up a socket, reads the content, parses the content and then writes a suitable reply on the socket. It really is simple, like a "hello world" for Azure, that I made just for testing purposes.
I installed the application on the VM, just like I would install any program on any other desktop environment (downloaded setup msi file from my DropBox folder) and it runs just fine. So far so good.
Now, any other client application (including browsers) from anywhere in the world, connected to the internet, should be able to query the server application by using URLs like http://myDNSname.cloudapp.net:80/hello. This has been tested on a local network, just to rule out any errors in the code, such as parsing errors, invalid HTTP headers and so on. It works just fine locally.
The problem : I can't connect to the server application installed on the VM. There are no pending connections when the server is queried, and the client application will just time out while waiting for a reply.
This is exactly what I have done, no more no less :
* Created a VM with Windows Server 2012.
* Created an endpoint (TCP, port 80) with "ENABLE DIRECT SERVER RETURN" checked, and with a load-balancing set (even though it is only 1 VM)
* Installed Chrome
* Installed DropBox
* Downloaded the installer for my application from my DropBox folder
* Installed the application
* Making a firewall inbound rule that enables the server application
* Started the program/application
Now the server application will actually connect to some sockets every now and then, but I'm assuming this is an Azure probe. It definitively isn't from my client application.
I've been struggling with this from quite some time now, and I've not found any other resources on the web that was able to help me with my problem. I'm thinking there has got to be some trivial, yet essential step that I have missed out on.
Also note that I have no experience with the Windows Server 2012 operating system, and this is actually also my first attempt to make any cloud-enabled application.
Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated.
regards
Stian