Port Forwarding challenge

[Mediaman]

I am having a port forwadring problem - new ground for me - was wondering if someone could point me in the right direction.

What works

I use MediaMonkey to manage my music library, and recently came accross Monkey Server (http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=42189) which is a an app that runs as a web server on your PC and allows you to access your MediaMonkey catalog remotely using a web browser.

When installed on the local machine, it works perfectly, and uses port 2233. The URL is simply http://<computername>:2233/


What doesn't:

As per the intent of the app, I am attempting to access Monkey Server from anywhere on the Internet. The 'over-simplified' instructions to do this are :

1. Configure Monkey Server to use a specific port (the default is 2233)
2. Configure your router to redirect incoming port 2233 requests to your PC's port 2233.
3. Use http://<publicrouteraddress>:2233 and you should be able to access Monkey Server from anywhere on the Internet.
   

I sought some futher explantion (on the above forum) and received a longer explantion, as well as info on use of a free optional no-ip.org service:

port forwarding is used to send the traffic on port :2233 from your routers LAN IP address to your servers lan IP address, this has nothing to do with the no-ip.org service. An example might be from 10.0.0.1:2233 (Router LAN IP) forwarded to 10.0.0.2:2233 (The internal IP of machine with Monkey Server)

The no-ip.org service is used to redirect traffic to your routers WAN IP or its internet IP address and is not essential for being able to access externally.

The no-ip.org service needs to know your external IP address of router to be
able to do this. You can then ccess your server using the no-ip.org domain name rather than the Routers WAN IP address. An example might be , your router has external ip of 203.203.23.203 so you could access your machine externally with the address http://203.203.23.203:2233 and if the port forwarding above has been configured you will access your monkey server externally. After setting up a no-ip.org account that redirects to your wan address you could use the addresss http://yourusername.no-ip.org:2233 to access the server externally (no-ip redirects the traffic from yourusername.no-ip.org to 203.203.23.203 for you so you don't need to remember the ip/​

Its not working for me.

Forgetting about no-ip for now...what I did was this;

1. accessed my router (D-Link DIR-655) via my browser via http://<default gateway address>
2. used Advanced Settings/Port forwarding, and selected the IP adress from the drop down - the one that is running Monkey Server), and specfied port 2233 (screen looks similar to this: http://portforward.com/english/routers/port_forwarding/Dlink/DIR-615/DIR-6154.jpg)
3. Saved changes, rebooted router, and verified again the port forwarding was there and checked off.

But nothing seems to work, I have tried:

-http://<default gateway address>:2233
-http://<routeraddress>:2233
-http://<computername>:2233
-http://<computerIPaddress>:2233


What am I missing?? How can I troubleshoot this further?

 

[thiggins]

From where are you testing port forwarding? A machine on your LAN or a machine on the WAN side of the router?

Even with the port forwarded, you should still be able to reach the server from a LAN machine via its IP address (and port).

From the WAN side of the router, you should be able to reach it via the router WAN IP address and port.

But if your router doesn't support loopback you won't be able to use the WAN IP to access the server if you are on the LAN.

 

[Mediaman]

From where are you testing port forwarding? A machine on your LAN or a machine on the router?.

I am testing access to the server (pc2) from a machine (pc1) on my LAN.

Even with the port forwarded, you should still be able to reach the server from a LAN machine via its IP address (and port)..

From pc1, I can remotely access the server itself in windows explorer, ie
-\\<pc2_computername or
-\\<pc2_IPaddress

From pc2, I can locally run:
-http://<pc2_computername>:2233 or
-http://<pc2_IPaddress>:2233

From the WAN side of the router, you should be able to reach it via the router WAN IP address and port.But if your router doesn't support loopback you won't be able to use the WAN IP to access the server if you are on the LAN.

From pc1, I cannot access:
-http://<pc2_computername>:2233 or
-http://<pc2_IPaddress>:2233 or
-http://<pc2_computername> or
-http://<pc2_IPaddress>

Are you saying this is because I am on the LAN and the D-Link DIR-655 router does support loopback?

(P.S I also tried to enable DMZ and set a machine outside the router, but could not access the server thay way either.)

 

[thiggins]

Sounds like the 655 doesn't support loopback. DMZ won't help you. You'll need to test remote access from a machine on the WAN side.

 

[Mediaman]

okay thanks. So to recap:

On my network, from computer 1, I can:

• ping computer 2
• access computer 2 from windows/explorer
• access computer 2 from Internet explorer ( using file:\\pc2_name or \\pc2_ipaddress)
• access computer 1 from Internet explorer ( eg http://pc1_name:2233...or http://pc1_ipaddress:2233
• - but cannot access computer 2 from Internet explorer ( eg http://pc2_name:2233...or http://pc2_ipaddress:2233

....could this be IE local intraent settings??? or this solely becuase my router does not not have loopback?

 

[kurtsee]

Forgive me for the following stupid question:
What is you Public/External IP address?

Can you provide a network diagram with IP address assignment as well?

-Kurt

 

[rolaids-]

Firewall..

If I have understood you correctly, this sounds like a firewall issue on PC2 (the one running the service you are trying to connect to.)

If you are running the plain windows firewall, check out this link: Windows Firewall If you can't access the computer from another computer on the same LAN, you have firewall issues. Using shared drives/printers doesn't count because that uses an entirely different set of ports. If the port you want to access doesn't work, then that port is blocked.

* but cannot access computer 2 from Internet explorer ( eg http://pc2_name:2233...or http://pc2_ipaddress:2233

This hints to me that the ports are closed.