ORBI RBK853 Port Forwarding only works from External

[pc74]

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

[pc74]

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]

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]

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

[KevinLiT]

Hi pc74,

Thank you for your reply!

Both solutions provided split your network into different networks. For devices to communicate they will have to be on the same network. If you would like all devices on your network to communicate you would need to use one network address. My recommendation is to reserve the IP addresses that you would like to keep static but ensure that is it on the same network. 

In your case, your network subnet mask is 254.0. That gives you a network range from .0.1 -1.168. Try changing your router's IP address to 0.1 with a 254.0 subnet mask.

Best,

Kevin

Community Team

[pc74]

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for the suggestion, when I get a chance to change the default gateway of all the 20-30 devices that are on static ip I'll try changing it from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.0.1 and see how it goes.

Thanks,

Peter