My server cannot be reached outside of my dwelling - Games

I made a server on my computer, and i play on it all the time. But when my friends try to connect from their homes, they always wind up with a "cannot reach server" message. They all have the correct updates, and are using vanilla MC, like me. Anybody got any ideas as ro why it aint work?

Ports, they need to be opened for outside connections to come in

I don't normally link to Google because it's a dick move, but if the answer can be found, please [url=http://www.google.com/search?q=Minecraft+%22Cannot+reach+server%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a]use google[/url] This will tell you what you need to do and how to do it.

The minecraft server listens for incoming TCP/IP connections your computer (by default the minecraft server listens for incoming connections on port 25565). Your firewall needs to allow this port (chances are the first time you started the server windows firewall asks you to allow / disallow the program) Another important thing to realize is that even if you have two or three computers connected to the internet through a router, the internet only sees one IP address - your router's. When people try to connect to your minecraft server, they're connecting to your router. Your router doesn't know what computer the minecraft server is on, though - should it connect to port 25565 on computer 1? or should it connect to port 25565 on computer 2? If your router has not been told to forward connections on this port to a specific computer, the connection is not allowed. So, to fix this, you need to tell your router to forward UDP and TCP/IP connections on port 25565 to your computer. This takes a little bit of work: 1.) Each computer connected to the router needs to have it's own "static ip address". This is an unchanging IP address that your router assigns to your computer. 2.) You have to learn how to connect to your router's "website" to tell it to forward a port to that IP address. The good news is once you learn how to do this, it only has to be done once. Better yet, there's even guides online that tell you how to do both of these things! Here's a guide to setting up static IP addresses. Make sure you do this one first: [url]http://portforward.com/networking/staticip.htm[/url] After you do that, find your particular router at [url]http://portforward.com/english/routers/port_forwarding/routerindex.htm[/url]. When you find your router, it will give you an advert. Press CLICK HERE TO SKIP THIS ADVERTISEMENT at the top of the page. After doing that, look for "Minecraft Server" in the list (doing CTRL+F and typing [i]Minecraft Server[/i] is a fast way to find it). Click on that link, and it will show you how to connect to your router's "website", and what you need to do to forward the port. Hope this has been some help.

Thx so much for that! :)