forums.smartfoxserver.com

This seems similar to one of my previous posts, but I'm going to ask a different question,
How do I run the server on my laptop that anyone can connect to? I don't want to use any external hosting sites.

Hi,
you only need to run the server and give your public IP address to whoever wants to connect.

However there are two things you need to check:

Firewall: if you run a firewall on your OS you need to configure it so that it allows traffic for TCP ports 9933 and 8080 in both directions
Router: if your laptop connects to the internet via a Wifi router, then your computer is not directly exposed to the internet an people will not be able to reach you.
To fix this is you need to configure the NAT (network address translation) on your router.
In simple words you need to tell your router that all traffic to ports 9933 and 8080 should be sent to the private IP of your laptop.

To find what if your public IP address goto this website:
https://whatismyipaddress.com/

Cheers

"In simple words you need to tell your router that all traffic to ports 9933 and 8080 should be sent to the private IP of your laptop." Thank you, but can you tell me how to do this? I can't find any tutorials online.

Sorry, I can't give you the precise steps because there're thousands of different router models on the market.
All you need to do is logging into your router and look up for the NAT Service. Every router has it.

Next you need to associate the SmartFoxServer port numbers (9933 and 8080) to the private address of your computer.
To get further help on this I recommend you check your Router's manual.

Cheers

My router manual didn't come with any steps to do that