Why do I have trouble accessing files on the Indiana Spatial Data Portal?

If you have problems accessing the Indiana Spatial Data Portal (ISDP) web site and downloading 2005 aerial county and township mosaics, or have trouble creating a connection from ArcGIS software to the Indiana Spatial Data Service, your network administrator may need to change your network firewall settings.

These problems stem from the ISDP server configuration, which uses non-standard ports for web communication. Requests sent to http://gis.iu.edu are automatically redirected to http://gis.iu.edu:8290/website/isds/index.htm. The :8290 listed after the server name shows the web server is using a non-standard port.

Some firewalls are configured to automatically block all communication from non-standard ports. If you cannot access http://gis.iu.edu, ask your administrator to set your network firewall to allow web communication from the following ports:

• 8290
• 8240
• 8306
• 8307

To manually open these ports using Internet Connection Firewall in Windows XP:

1. Open My Network Places, or from the Control Panel, select Network Connections.
   
   
2. Right-click Local Area Connection or whatever connection you use to access the Internet, and select Properties.
   
   
3. Select the Advanced tab.
   
   
4. Next to "Windows Firewall", click Settings.

   Note: If the Settings button is unavailable, then the Internet Connection Firewall is not enabled on this connection, and you do not have to open any ports (because they are all already open).

5. Select the Exceptions tab.
   
   
6. Make sure the TCP option is selected, and click Add Port.
   
   
7. Next to "Name", type ISDP Port 8290 .
   
   
8. Next to "Port Number", type 8290 .
   
   
9. Click OK. Add the other three ports listed above in the same way.
   
   
10. Click OK on the Windows Firewall screen, and then click OK in the Local Area Connection Properties screen.

This should allow you to access the ISDP web site, download 2005 county and township mosaic files, and connect to the Indiana Spatial Data Service to stream map services into desktop GIS software such as ArcMap.

Also see:

• Why do I need a password to download some GIS data from the Indiana Spatial Data Portal?
• How do I use ArcGIS to connect to the Indiana Spatial Data Service?
• At IU, how can I access free GIS software?
• Using an ArcIMS image service in ArcMap, why is the resolution of my plot so poor?