Occasionally you want to test a server/firewall to ensure that an application is listening on a particular TCP port. If the application is installed and you cannot connect from an external IP then most likely it is the firewall. Occasionally you want to test for the entire flow without installing the application. The following steps will help you achieve that:

1. Download Python 2.7.x (installed latest version of Python 2.7) from Python 2.7.3
2. Choose to download the .msi for windows. Python is installed by default on most Linux and OSX systems.
3. To perform a silent install on windows use the /S option when running the .msi from command line.
4. Copy the Python BasicWebServer, save contents to a text file called webserver.py, and it's associated log config file to py_log.conf.
5. Run the script using the following command (in a DOS CMD window) :

c:\python27\python.exe webserver.py

Now connect to http://localhost:port/a.esp to test this from the local machine from a web browser. Once this works, connect to the corresponding URL from an external machine. Edit the webserver.py file and change the PORT = 8080 line to your desired port. Control-C the current running instance of webserver and launch it again to enable listening on the updated port.