NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.

Forum Discussion

pc74's avatar
pc74
Aspirant
Nov 02, 2022

ORBI RBK853 Port Forwarding only works from External

Hi All,

I tried searching but didn't find any threads with a solution.  I just upgraded from Nighthawk RAX120 to ORBI RBK853 Mesh last night.  I've setup port forwarding the same way as it was on the Nighthawk, but it only seems to work from externally.  If I try from within my network either on my wired desktop or wifi on the phone none of the connections to my DDNS name and port will work.  Some of the threads appear to mention NAT Loopback as the issue, but the documentation from 2020 https://kb.netgear.com/000049578/Which-NETGEAR-routers-support-NAT-loopback states this is supported and no settings need to be configured to enable it.  

I also notice that when I try to access my DDNS name with a port that is forward from and internal system it provides site cannot be reached error, but if just put int he DDNS name with no port, it reaches the ORBI web configuration page.  So it appears internally it is resolving to my ORBI Router LAN IP.  If I try the same tests from external, I get the opposite effect where just the DDNS name with no port does not load any page, but with the port, actually forwards to the internal system it's setup to reach.

I use the port forwarding to reach a Synology server and multiple IP Cams, and it's mainly the IP Cams that I want to be able to monitor from my phone app from both internal and external.

Hardware Version RBR850
Firmware Version V4.6.9.11_2.3.5
GUI Language Version V3.0.1.51_2.1.30.3
Operation Mode Router

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks,

Peter

5 Replies

  • pc74's avatar
    pc74
    Aspirant
    Nov 02, 2022

    I've somewhat resolved my issue.  So I have my subnet mask set to a /23 instead of the normal /24.  My router LAN ip is set to the default 192.168.1.1 with mask 255.255.254.0.  I was using the 192.168.1.x range for static ips in my network and had the dhcp giving out ips in the 192.168.0.x range.  The ORBI didn't like this I guess and anything in the 192.168.0.x range was not able to use the external DNS name and port.  The Nighthawk RAX120 was fine with this setup.  I've moved the DHCP to the 192.168.1.x range now too, but I have left the subnet mask at 255.255.254.0 since I didn't want to change all the masks on the devices i manually setup static ip, but all seems to be working now.  

     

    I'd still like to use my split subnets for static and dhcp if any one can advise why the ORBI doesn't like this setup and how I can get it fixed and working?

     

    Thanks in advance

    • KevinLiT's avatar
      KevinLiT
      NETGEAR Moderator
      Nov 08, 2022

      Hello pc74,

       

      Welcome to the NETGEAR Community!

       

      I understand that you would like to split networks for your static and DHCP devices. 

       

      Please do the following:

       

      Use a network of 192.168.2.1 with the subnet mask of 255.0 for your DHCP devices. 

      Change your current network static subnet mask address to 255.0. 

       

      You can also use the IP address 192.168.1.1 with a subnet mask of 255.128 this will give you access to 126 usable devices. Then you will be able to start your second network at 192.168.1.128 with a mask of 255.128.

       

      Best,

      Kevin

      Community Team

      • pc74's avatar
        pc74
        Aspirant
        Nov 09, 2022
        Hi Kevin,
        If I set each one to .255.0 network mask wouldn't that prevent the static ip and dhcp devices from being able to communicate with each other?
        Thanks,
        Peter