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Home network issues

Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 4:13 am
by shiznatix
This isn't really a PHP problem or anything but maybe someone here can give me a hand. I will start this off by saying my networking skills are very basic and I dont really understand the whole subnetmask stuff, etc.

My network setup at home goes like so:
Thompson DSL modem / router
D-Link wifi router
All computers (wired and wireless).

Under "All computers" there is my server computer that I am trying to make accessible to the outside world. I have done this many times in the past but for some reason I can't get it to work this time and I think it is because of my router IPs.

When I am connected via the D-Link router, my Thompson has an IP of 192.168.1.254 and my D-Link is at 192.168.0.1. But, when I view the devices under the Thompson, it says the D-Link's IP is 192.168.1.67. Both are on the same subnetmask of 255.255.255.0. This seams strange and seams like it could be causing problems.

If I am connected via the D-Link and type in http://MY-EXTERNAL-IP-ADDRESS then I get the website correctly. No problems at all. But, if I am connected to another network and try to open that IP, the connection times out. Also, I can ping the IP from an external network, no problems - just not connect on port 80 or 21.

For forwarding the ports, I have the Thompson forwarding the ports to the D-Link router (based on MAC address as thats the only way it lets me), and then the D-Link router forwards to the correct IP.

Can anyone give me some advice to get this all working so I can access the server computer from outside my local network? Anything that I am obviously doing wrong?

Re: Home network issues

Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 7:00 am
by Celauran
Could it be that your ISP blocks port 80? That was a problem I had, so I had Apache listen on port 8080. Yes, it was a pain having to add :8080 to every request, but it worked.

Re: Home network issues

Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 7:20 am
by shiznatix
Celauran wrote:Could it be that your ISP blocks port 80? That was a problem I had, so I had Apache listen on port 8080. Yes, it was a pain having to add :8080 to every request, but it worked.
Negative. There is no port blocking going on by the ISP

Re: Home network issues

Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 12:55 pm
by Doug G
Don't use two routers is my advice. If you're NAT'ing from one router to the 2nd router the connection between routers will have to be on a separate subnet, and you'll have to do weird port forwarding and ip setup to get traffic through both routers. It can get very confusing to set up and difficult to troubleshoot with dual routers.l

Re: Home network issues

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2012 1:55 am
by shiznatix
Doug G wrote:Don't use two routers is my advice. If you're NAT'ing from one router to the 2nd router the connection between routers will have to be on a separate subnet, and you'll have to do weird port forwarding and ip setup to get traffic through both routers. It can get very confusing to set up and difficult to troubleshoot with dual routers.l
Sadly its not so much of an option to just use 1 router due to configuration limitations and some other garbage.

I think though I found the problem. It seams the first router isn't forwarding anything and, although our contract says differently, I found a forum post saying my ISP blocks all TCP ports by default (just give a call to open them up). I will call them today and hopefully by the time I get home from work everything will be up and running. I will keep you posted

Re: Home network issues

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2012 2:16 am
by shiznatix
Sigh, yep, it seams that even though we asked them about 5 times and they asked us to confirm at least 2 times that we want all TCP ports open, they didn't do it. All ports will be open by tomorrow morning. Sorry for wasting everyones time, stupid ISP.