Haxe: connecting to a remote host - sockets

Question

I did the creating a client/server tutorial given here,
http://old.haxe.org/doc/neko/client_server,
but this example only really applies to the case of a local host which is of pretty limited utility. I was hoping that someone could explain how to extend this to the case of connecting to a remote host. Specifically, if someone knows how to modify this example such that I could run the server code from a laptop at home and have a friend (who knows my home ip) run the client.
Client code:
// file Client.hx
class Client {
static function main() {
var s = new sys.net.Socket();
s.connect(new sys.net.Host("localhost"),5000);
while( true ) {
var l = s.input.readLine();
trace(l);
if( l == "exit" ) {
s.close();
break;
}
}
}
}
Server code:
// file Server.hx
class Server {
static function main() {
var s = new sys.net.Socket();
s.bind(new sys.net.Host("localhost"),5000);
s.listen(1);
trace("Starting server...");
while( true ) {
var c : sys.net.Socket = s.accept();
trace("Client connected...");
c.write("hello\n");
c.write("your IP is "+c.peer().host.toString()+"\n");
c.write("exit");
c.close();
}
}
}
As a disclaimer, I know very little about communication protocols, so I apologize if the question is silly.
Edit:
If I replace "local host" with my local ip address "192.168.1.254" this still works, but if I replace "localhost" with my public ip address "206.XXX.XXX.XXX," the client does not connect (this was the first thing I tried).
I have disabled my firewall for both incoming and outgoing traffic on that port, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. Why is it that my client instance can only connect to the server instance locally? I would have though that changing the client code to use the public ip address of the computer route the request through the router.
Edit:
Turns out that it was actually working all along with the public ip address, but for whatever reason it could not connect to the router's public ip from within my local network (I still don't understand why this was a problem - maybe some weird router specific NAT problem). Using this utility:
http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/open-ports/
I was able to verify that the relevant ports were open and connect to my server program.

Answer 1

In clients code in below string replace "localhost" with your IP-address:
s.connect(new sys.net.Host("localhost"),5000);
http://api.haxe.org/sys/net/Host.html
Creates a new Host : the name can be an IP in the form "127.0.0.1" or an host name such as "google.com", in which case the corresponding IP address is resolved using DNS. An exception occur if the host name could not be found.

Answer 2

This really depends on your home setup. Generally its a security risk to just open something on your home ip, so do this at your own risk.
Most likely you will have a dynamic ip address from your isp. This means that every time you connect to your isp your public ip may be different. Its common to use a third party service to get around this kind of thing. Many routers have a feature built in do to integrate with these providers but there are also native apps you can install. There are many services out there some free, some paid depending on what you want and who you trust eg http://www.noip.com/, http://dyn.com/dns/. These services will have getting started guides.
When its working you can change your client code from localhost to the public ip address and port you setup the dynamic dns service to expose.