Port Forwarding on Asus Merlin

[pusb87]

Hi,

Hope someone can help.
I am running the BiglyBT (formely Vuze) Torrent application on my PC and the network test facilty on BiglyBT advises me that I should check port forwading for TCP and UDP ports 15596. ( attached)

I have an Asus RT86U running openvpn client with PIA. My PC has IP address 192.168.1.2
Using Merlin firmware 384.8.2

I have tried to set up port forwarding as shown below with no apparent success.

Can anyone offer any help please ??

 

[RMerlin]

The port forward only works for traffic going through the main connection, it won't work with traffic going through a VPN tunnel as that is controlled by the VPN server, not by your router.

 

[pusb87]

The port forward only works for traffic going through the main connection, it won't work with traffic going through a VPN tunnel as that is controlled by the VPN server, not by your router.

many thanks for that info...
so is there anything else I could do to get the ports forwarded but still use PIA as openvpn client, maybe in the custom config settings , or do i just have to accept theres nothing more i can do ?

 

[RMerlin]

many thanks for that info...
so is there anything else I could do to get the ports forwarded but still use PIA as openvpn client, maybe in the custom config settings , or do i just have to accept theres nothing more i can do ?

You will have to check with them. Some providers offer port forwarding and static IPs as options.

 

[pusb87]

You will have to check with them. Some providers offer port forwarding and static IPs as options.

thanks again.

i contacted PIA and they pointed me to this page >> Please see here on information on port forwarding API: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/archive/forum/discussion/23431/new-pia-port-forwarding-api

I have successfully followed their instructions given in the 1st couple of posts and connected to a PIA server thats supports port forwarding.

However, when i run the script i get this message

I have contacted PIA support again but dissapointingly they are not able to offer any further help/support.


Just hoping someone here may have run into a similar issue and could offer some guidance on what to do next.

 

[ColinTaylor]

However, when i run the script i get this message

View attachment 15682

The router doesn't have the sha256sum command.

As per this comment: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/archive/forum/discussion/comment/45712/#Comment_45712

 

[pusb87]

The router doesn't have the sha256sum command.

As per this comment: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/archive/forum/discussion/comment/45712/#Comment_45712

yes thanks, I'd read that but I'm totally unclear on what exactly to do...can you help ?

attached is the portforward script file ( with an added.txt extension so i could attach)
do i have to make edits to this file and if so what ??

help much appreciated as this is a bit out of my depth but willing to have a go !

 

[ColinTaylor]

Try changing the first occurrence of "sha256sum" to "md5sum".

 

[pusb87]

Try changing the first occurrence of "sha256sum" to "md5sum".

thanks for that @ColinTaylor

that seemed to get me a bit farther on as now when i run the script modified with md5sum i get this result

but the bad ( i think) is if i test this port or use that port in my torrent client still looks like the port has not been forwarded ( or am i missing something)....

your help is very much appreciated and whilst it seems 1 step forward, 2 steps back i'm willling to battle on if you can offer any further help

 

[ColinTaylor]

Sorry, I can't really help. I don't use VPN clients. If I had to guess I'd say that the incoming traffic is probably being received correctly by the router's VPN client. But as the traffic is unsolicited the VPN client has no way of knowing what device on the LAN it's meant to forward it to.

 

[pusb87]

Sorry, I can't really help. I don't use VPN clients. If I had to guess I'd say that the incoming traffic is probably being received correctly by the router's VPN client. But as the traffic is unsolicited the VPN client has no way of knowing what device on the LAN it's meant to forward it to.

Ok and many thanks for your help in getting me this far..
maybe someone else who has tried/succesfully been down this route may jump in with some further help ??

 

[Jack Yaz]

Sorry, I can't really help. I don't use VPN clients. If I had to guess I'd say that the incoming traffic is probably being received correctly by the router's VPN client. But as the traffic is unsolicited the VPN client has no way of knowing what device on the LAN it's meant to forward it to.

It would be interesting to see the iptables rules created for normal port forwarding, and seeing if they can be adapted for the client tunnel