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Forum Discussion
Port forwarding MQTT Orbi RBK50 ports not open!
I have setup portforwarding on the orbi for ports 1883 and 8330. On the orbi advanced settings (192.168.1.1) it is saying they are open but I pinged the ports from nmap and it is saying they are ...
Was nmap running on the Orbi LAN or externally?
Orbi port forwarding relies on the target device responding to connection attempts. As an example, the Windows firewall has different 'rules' for local and external networks. I have often set up programs on a Windows computer to do something (FTP server, for example) and tested it successfully on the LAN. Forwarded ports, but could not reach the server. Aha! Windows Firewall was blocking external connections.
My usual steps are
- Confirm ports are open on the LAN
- Check the device firewall to see that it allows connects from external networks
- Use one of the many "is this port open?" web sites to check. Such as Gibson Research Shields Up! https://www.grc.com/shieldsup
nmap is running in orbi LAN but I am pinging the external IP
nmap -p 8883 82.432.2.245
The device is a small microcontroller (ESP32) it does not have a firewall as far as I know.
I checked the website you have suggested port 1883 does not show, as per my nmap command.
I added 2 rules to the firewall but it made no change to the issue.
Would it be able to as my ESP is connecting to the orbi? it would not go through my windows machine.
Thanks for the reply.
Oh, my. Waaaay above my competence level!
I would rely more on tests from an external site than nmap. There something called NAT Loopback which may totally interfere with port forwarding. My search turned up many hits, such as this one:
https://subledge.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/what-is-nat-loopback/
I believe you are correct that the ESP32 does not contain a firewall until one is programmed into it. For example, this project shows using an ESP32 as a web server and never mentions a firewall. Although I have no idea what the WiFiServer (that must be defined in WiFi.h?) does. (Maybe it opens a port?) ---- Now that I read this again, I don't know one way or the other.
This application works correctly when accessed from the local LAN?
One thing that is frustrating about Port Forwarding is that the router (in this case the Orbi) has no awareness of the connection. A packet arrives addressed to the public IP, port xx. Router forwards that packet to an internal IP, port yy (often the same,but not a requirement). If the internal device sends a packet out, that's cool. If not, that's cool as well. The router neither knows nor cares. UDP packets, for example, do no handshake, so there is no ACK involved. If there is no process listening to the port on the device, there is no error as far as the router is concerned.