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Forum Discussion
How to port forward in Nighthawk M5?
I’m using a Nighthawk M5 (HW version 1.2) with a Netgear Orbi RBK33 mesh system. The Nighthawk’s WiFi coverage is not enough to cover the entire home so I need to use a separate mesh system. But unfortunately, I cannot get the full speed of my internet connection (which is around 500Mbps) if I connect the Nighthawk in IP passthrough mode as experienced by many others here. So I am running in double NAT mode, which works fine for internet (I get good speeds) but I am unable to port forward with this setup.
This is how I have configured the two devices and what I have tried so far:
Nighthawk:
- IP Passthrough = off, DHCP = on, Gateway=192.168.1.1, subnet = 255.255.255.0 Wifi = off
Orbi:
- WAN IP = 192.168.1.36 (assigned by Nighthawk) , subnet = 255.255.255.0, gateway = 192.168.1.1, DHCP = on, LAN IP = 192.168.0.1 LAN subnet = 255.255.255.0
I’ve turned on DMZ on nighthawk with DMZ address = 192.168.1.36
Then forwarded ports in Orbi like I used to do when I had a different internet connection. This does not work.
So I turned off DMZ in Nighthawk and added a port forwarding rule to forward a specific port from Orbi (192.168.1.36) while having the same port forwarded in the Orbi from a computer in the LAN. This doesn’t work either.
However, I am still able to connect to my security systems remotely all of which I believe uses UPNP.
Port forwarding was working with the Orbi before I switched over to 5G with the Nighthawk where I used a modem without any routing capabilities.
Am I doing something wrong? Or is this yet another bug?
P.S: I know the Orbi can be put into an AP only mode that will remove the double NAT and potentially solve the port forwarding issue, but I need some of the advanced features provided by Orbi like Gust WiFi and VLANs that will not work in AP mode.
5 Replies
- Don't have one to test.
First recommend Orbi WAN be static IP (like 192.168.1.2) and set that to DMZ.
Try opening a WAN port on the Orbi (such as FTP server or remote SSH or HTTPS admin) then see if the Orbi answers an incoming connection from OUTSIDE your LAN (from the cloud, a separate phone LTE connection will do). If the Orbi answers, it's your Orbi forwarding that's the problem.Thanks for your reply.
I have already made Orbi’s IP i.e: 192.168.1.36 (which was originally assigned by the Nighthawk) a static IP within Orbi, but I can try changing it to a lower number like 2 in case there is some wired limitation on the Nighthawk.
I also installed IIS on a virtual machine to help test port forwarding. I can access the webserver from the Nighthawk’s LAN i.e: 192.168.1.1/24 when I connect to Nighthawk’s WiFi and visit 192.168.1.38:80 (which is Orbi’s IP). I believe this means Orbi’s port forwarding is working correctly. But I can’t connect to the webserver from outside whether I have DMZ or a port forwarding on the Nighthawk.
Looks like the problem is not with the Nighthawk modem or the Orbi router, rather the ISP I’m using. Apparently Telstra (over here in Australia) does not issue public IPs to their mobile broadband customers WTH?!?!?. :smileyfrustrated:
When I was going through the various settings of the Nighthawk I saw a 10.x.x.x IP listed as the public IP instead of the 1.115.x.x IP I was expecting to see as reported in my no-ip DDNS account and sites like whatismyipaddress.com !. I then googled and came across many threads like this one where other people have also complained about this exact same issue.
- That's what I assumed at first, but I thought you had said it was previously working. I ruled out carrier grade NAT (which most cellular connections are restricted to). I thought you were one of the lucky few to actually get a live IP from a cell carrier or that you were paying them extra for a public IP.
When I said
h_ari wrote:Port forwarding was working with the Orbi before I switched over to 5G with the Nighthawk where I used a modem without any routing capabilities.
I meant it was working with my previous internet connection which was fixed line, sorry for the confusion.
Going to see if I can do what I want (mainly to connect to a server in my home network) via a cloud based VPN like OpenVPN cloud.
