NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
Solved
R6300V2 Bridge Mode Prevents Port Forwarding! Help!
I have spent over a total of 100 hours trying to get port forwarding to work on my network so that I can use the remote access feature on the Plex Media Server app.
I've done all the basics, reserving my PC's IP address, adding the port to the router's port forwarding setting, added the port to my firewall, etc etc, but nothing worked.
My current setup:
Router in the bedroom plugs into the ethernet as well as a PC in the bedroom (I'll call this Router 1). A second router is in my office and in the router settings, it has bridge mode turned on and an ethernet cable hooked into my office PC so that my office PC gets our full download speed and not the crappy 15mb/s that my wireless card allows (I'll refer to this router as Router 2).
After trying over 100 internet guides (that's not an exageration...) that pretty much all had me doing the same crap, nothing made the port open.Even using programs such as PFConfig and Simple Port Forwarding were unable to open the port I need. I even tried enableing the DMZ server, making my bridged router a static IP, and so many other things I can't even think of it all...
So I finally just did a factory reset on Router 2, got it set back up, but instead of putting in in bridge mode, I went to my adapter settings, selected the wifi signal of Router 1 and the ethernet from Router 2, right clicked and made them into a bridge that way.
And finally it worked! I was able to forward the port I need and use my Plex server when I'm away from home for days, sometimes weeks at a time! But there was a crappy side to it... This type of connection didn't give me the extra ethernet speed... My max download speed with the routers bridged in this manner was 15.5mb/s, compared to 40 - 50mb/s when bridged in the router's settings.
So I need to know if there is a way around this issue, or is it just impossible to do port forwarding with 2 R6300v2 routers? Any help is HIGHLY appreciated as this has been driving me COMPLETELY INSANE!
That's it!
Your internet port has a 100.x.x.x address. canyouseeme.org shows a 76.x.x.x.
That says that either your ISP's modem is doing its own NAT routing or that your ISP is using carrier NAT. On paper at least 100.x.x.x is reserved for carrier NAT.
See if you can find the manufacturer/model for that modem. You also might need to contact your ISP, and see if they have some way to keep that port open.
Another thought is that you could try changing the port number (say to 49152) in the R1 forwarding rule and also in the plex server configuration. It's possible that using a port in the "private use" range will work better.
17 Replies
Bridge mode should not be blocking ports, although there is always the possibility of a bug. Let's see if we can figure this out.
With router 2 in bridge mode, were you able to access Plex while at home? If the answer is yes, then bridge mode is not blocking ports.
Did you set up port forwarding on router 1 to point at your PC's address? I ask because it looks like you may have tried to point at router 2's IP address.
Finally, your successful attempt by bridging your PC's Wi-Fi and Ethernet interfaces is unnecessary. Your PC is now functioning as a bridge to router 2:
Router 1-----PC----Router 2----Other devices?
Unless there are additional devices connected to router 2, this setup is doing nothing. It's certainly not helping make Plex accessible. You should find that Plex still works even if you unbridge the PC's two interfaces.
Sorry for the late reply, I went to bed shortly after posting, having been up over 24 hours trying to work on this.
Yes it works when I'm at home, but you don't NEED the ports forwarded when you're on your home network (I can watch it without the port forwarding at all from home). When the router is NOT bridged, I can forward the port (with my PC's IP, NOT the 2nd router, though I've tried it both ways when I ran out of things to try) and acess it outside of the home. When the router IS bridged, the ports do not open, I've used port forwarding programs such as PFConfig and they all tell me that the port is closed/unreachable when the router is bridged, but they work fine when it is NOT bridged.
Is bridged mode meant to grey out a lot of the things in the router's settings? I can't edit any info on router 2, just wireless settings to turn bridge mode on/off, view some router info, etc etc, no major changes. On router 1, I can still edit things correctly, as it's not in bridged mode. But forwarding the ports on router 1 while router 2 is in bridge mode, makes everything tell me the port is NOT open or is unreachable, and thus remote access refuses to work.
From your post, I take it that it was only using the wireless connection when I had them bridged through the control panel? I've seen a lot of people have problem getting port forward to work with 2 routers, if I made my PC the bridge to router 2, then it was workinb because router 2 was not between this pc and router 1. So I need the bridge to work like that, even in bridge mose, it must be giving me double NAT then? On another forum, Tom's hardware, I was told these router's don't have a bridged mode, what they call bridge mode isn't actual bridging... "Actual" bridging removes the NAT services from the bridged router, so I'm assuming r6300's bridge mode does not do that? Anyway to make it work as it is in bridge mode, but removing it's NAT service so I don't have double NAT?
EDIT: To fix double NAT for plex, I've read that I need to open the port from router 1 to router 2, then router 2 to my pc (or some similar combination, maybe just router 2 to 1, something like that) but it's impossible to do as the r6300v2 greys out the port forwarding in bridged mode and does not allow me to make edits to the bridged router.
Here is my router 2 settings, showing everything greyed out. I can't really change ANY settings in bridged mode, except the ones shown here.
The R6300v2 router connected directly to your ISP is your main router. I can't tell from your posts which router that is, You can set up the other router (whichever one that is) in bridge mode, but the one connected to your ISP needs to be in full router mode. Also, it is possible that your ISP's modem is really a gateway. If so, it also would act as a router, and that does create a double-NAT. Can you let us know the manufacturer/model of the ISP modem?
It would be helpful to know which PC is the plex server. Is this the one in the bedroom (connected to router 1) or in the office (connected to router 2).
The bridging feature in the R6300v2
- uses the R6300v2 wifi to connect to the main router
- provides ethernet connectivity to anything connected to its LAN ports.
Performance is limited to the wifi connection between the bridge and the router. IP addresses, etc come from the main router, not from the bridge.
Some might say this is not really bridging, but it does fit the definition. "A network bridge is a computer networking device that creates a single aggregate network from multiple communication networks or network segments."
When the router is in bridge or AP mode, it is not routing at all. Routing functions are grayed out in the admin web ui. So if there is a port forwarding issue, it has to be with the main router. Hopefully we can get a better understanding of the overall network topology so we can sort out the right configuration.
