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capperrice's avatar
Apr 27, 2020
Solved

X6 R7900 Port Forwarding Not Working at all

Running into a peculiar problem!

 

Windows 10 PC

Switched off Windows Defender and Antivirus - ALL OFF

Netgear Router Firmward - V1.0.3.18_10.0.42

NO VPN

 

I am not able to get it to work for my Windows 10 PC.  Assigned it static IP (192.168.1.8), created a custom service with both internal and external ports the same - 52007.

 

I started "Simple TCP Listener" program on the desktop. https://canyouseeme.org cannot see me at the port.  Looks like Router is blocking it somehow.

 

Not sure if I am missing something obvi - word borrowed from NCIS Los Angeles :robothappy:

  • Summarizing all the steps on how to resolve this!

     

    1. You should have something listening on the port to check if it is open or closed.  If nothing is listening, it will show as closed.

    2. If you have a Router and a Wireless Modem, you should either

       a. Make Router as a "Transparent Bridge" (Frontier FIOS term) and Port Forward in the Wireless Modem. 

       b. OR Port Forward in the Router AND Wireless Modem.

    3. You should make a hole in your Firewall - Windows Defender in my case - I modified in Advanced Options -> Inbound Rules and Outbound Rules.

     

    The software I used to test

    a. Simple TCP Listener but I saw that on higher port numbers you have to quit and restart.  Seems like a bug in it.

    b.  Simple Port Tester - The catch is it will set up a rule in Firewall that this program has all ports opened (and closed) during testing.  Thus during testing it will open a port, listen on it, sent the request from its website, if received, report success, port is closed.

     

    Special Thanks to antinode.  He/She is very knowledgeable. :heart:

     

    I am marking this as Solved!  

7 Replies

  • > Assigned it static IP [address] (192.168.1.8), [...]

     

          https://community.netgear.com/t5/x/x/m-p/1886694

     

    > I started "Simple TCP Listener" program on the desktop. [...]

     

       How did you test that from a system on your LAN?  (It should be
    possible using a Telnet client program.)

     

    > [...] Looks like Router is blocking it somehow.

     

       Or, something else is wrong.

    • capperrice's avatar
      capperrice
      Star

      antinode  I see that you have been extremely helpful for many years!  Thanks indeed!

       

      Point well taken - Static and Reserved Dynamic IP Addresses are different.  I have a Reserved Dynamic IP Address

       

      Is it possible to check/verify at the Router itself if it received the request from the website at the port?   If Router received it and forwarded it correctly (is it possible to check that too at the router - through logs perhaps?), then it is my laptop that is blocking on it. 

      • antinode's avatar
        antinode
        Guru

        > Is it possible to check/verify at the Router itself if it received the
        > request from the website at the port? [...]

         

           Not easily, but you should be able to send your own request from a
        system on your LAN.

         

        > I started "Simple TCP Listener" program on the desktop.

         

           Why?  Is getting that to work your final goal? I f not, then what is?

         

           What are the client and server programs which you would use normally?

         

        >       https://community.netgear.com/t5/x/x/m-p/1886694

         

        >    Can you connect to the server from a system on your LAN, using the
        > server system's LAN IP address (the one in your port-forwarding rule)?
        > If you can't access the server locally, then there may be little chance
        > of doing it from the outside world.
        >

        >    If that works, then, still from a system on your LAN, try using the
        > router's WAN/Internet IP address.  That should verify the
        > port-forwarding rule(s) (and the "NAT loopback" feature of the router).

         

           Plenty of other questions/suggestions there, too.

         

           If you don't have real client and server programs ('I started "Simple
        TCP Listener" program'), then you can use a Telnet client program to
        talk to almost anything.  (Or, at least, open a connection to it.
        Whether you can send a meaningful message to it, and get a meaningful
        response from it, depends on the actual server program involved.)  On
        Windows, you might need to enable it before you can use it:

         

              https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/telnet

         

           Then, to talk to a program which is listening at port 52007 on a
        system at IP address "192.168.1.8", a command like the following should
        work:

         

              telnet 192.168.1.8 52007


           Error message syntax varies from system to system, and I don't have a
        Windows system up at the moment, but a typical failure might look like
        this (on a Mac, where "10.0.0.1" is my router (LAN)):

         

              $ telnet 10.0.0.1 443
              Trying 10.0.0.1...
              telnet: connect to address 10.0.0.1: Connection refused
              telnet: Unable to connect to remote host

         

           "Connection refused" means that basic communication with the system
        at "10.0.0.1" worked, but no one there was listening at port 443.  With
        port 80, I'd expect a different result.)