Setting up a static IP for port forwarding

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Level 1

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Setting up a static IP for port forwarding

I'm hoping that someone could help me on this issue on which I have spent an entire afternoon without success.

I have an iMac with Leopard 10.5.6. I live in the UK and I'm subscribed to Virgin cable broadband, through a Netgear WGR614v9 router.

I have a P2P program called Utorrent, and I'm trying to carry out a task called 'port forwarding'. I read through www.portforward.com and it tells me that in order to do so, I have to set up a static IP on my iMac to do so.

I've tried to do this in Networking in System preferences -

1. I go to TCP/IP and changed the configure IPv4 to Manual

2. Changed the IP address to something similar to my router IP (router IP is 192.168.1.1 and I changed the IPv4 address to 192.168.1.10)

3. Wend to DNS section and entered in the DNS server addresses that I got from phoning the internet provider

Then pressed Apply to find that my internet connection goes down completely. The Airport works properly and can connect to the router, but the internet is showing a red sign.

Setting up the port forwarding in the Netgear router is easy enough - you just go to the port forwarding section and add a port to open.

Every time I go to the http://www.utorrent.com/testport.php?port=(my designated port here) and check, the port is closed.

What am I doing wrong? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Message was edited by: Robotwars

iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.6), on cable broadband using Netgear wgr614v9

Posted on Feb 21, 2009 3:29 PM

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Answer 1

BobHarris

Level 9

56,933 points

Feb 21, 2009 4:50 PM in response to Robotwars

First, while I do not know any specific details about your router, I do know that some routers allow you to either a) associate port forwarding with a specific system based on the Media Access Control (MAC) address of your ethernet or WiFi adaptor. So no matter what you actual addresses, the router will forward the port to the correct system.

The other approach some routers take is to always assign the same IP address to a system based on its MAC address. This gives the same result as you can make your port forwarding assignment and be assured that the router will always give the target system the same IP address.

And finally some routers make the association with the "DHCP Client ID" which is an optional field you can specify in the System Preferences -> Network -> Advanced -> TCP/IP secion.

If you router does not offer that service, then I'm am Surprised that it does not let you assign a Fixed IP address.

One thought along those lines, is that you most likely chose an address that is in the range of DHCP addresses the router assigns. Try looking at the routers DHCP configuration and picking a Fixed IP address just outside that range, or modify the range to be a little smaller to allow room for your Fixed IP address.

The other thing to try is using the OpenDNS.com DNS servers:
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
Mac OS X Leopard can sometimes get picky about some DNS servers. The OpenDNS DNS servers are known to work with Mac OS X. If this works, you can experiment with using other DNS servers closer to home, but first establish if it is a DNS server issue using the OpenDNS servers.

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Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,252 points

Feb 21, 2009 5:28 PM in response to Robotwars

It sounds like you did everything correctly, so I don't know why you are not getting through.
Did you add your router address to the Router field?

On another note, you might want to figure out where your router stops giving out DHCP addresses and use something above that for the manual. Apple's Airport extreme stops at 200, so using 201 to 254 will not cause any problems with it handing out addresses.

Some routers also let you reserve an IP for a particular computer, which may work instead of the static. I don't have a Netgear, so you'll have to search around to find out how to accomplish those tasks.

As to the Port being closed, do you have your firewall set up on the Mac. If so, you're going to have to open the port you want. If you start up Utorrent, it should ask for access to the appropriate ports and the OS will ask if you want to allow it. You might want to turn off the firewall until you get everything else sorted out.

Also, your subnet mask should be 255.255.255.0

Message was edited by: Barney-15E

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Answer 3

Feb 21, 2009 8:39 PM in response to Robotwars

Hopefully not to obvious a suggestion, but reading through your config. I didn't see mention of entering your router address (192.168.1.1) as part of the manual configuration. You might also check the router to see what DNS server(s) it is using, and try one of those.

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Answer 4

Robotwars Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 22, 2009 4:33 AM in response to Robotwars

Hello everyone,

Thank you for your advice so far, I am very grateful. As I'm not too knowledgeable about how a router works, I haven't understood everything that's been posted here, so I'll try to provide more information on my router and what it says about my DHCP and DNS.

When I go into the Router Status section of my Netgear WGR614v9, I see the following:-

Internet Port:

MAC address 00:22:3F:7A:42:F9
IP Address 86.2.191.3
DHCP DHCPClient
IP Subnet Mask 255.255.252.0
Domain Name Server 194.168.4.100
194.168.8.100

LAN Port:

MAC Address 00:22:3F:7A:42:F8
IP Address 192.168.1.1
DHCP On
IP Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0

Taking up on what Leslie Helou said, I tried changing the DNS addresses to what I see above from what I got from my ISP customer support, and now, even when I change the TCP/IP section to Manual, I no longer lose connection. However, I still see red when I check on the http://www.utorrent.com/testport.php?port=(my designated port here) site.

Regarding the other advices, I have to say, although I am very thankful for the advice, I don't understand enough of it to follow your advice unfortunately.

Does the extra information that I just provided give any hints to what's going wrong? And if things continue to go wrong, who else can I seek help from? My ISP does NOT provide support to Mac users, which is why I am asking for help here.

Thank you to all those who took their time to write a reply.

EDIT:

I'm just going to provide some more information on my Router from the Basic Settings page.

Internet IP address set to Get Dynamically from ISP. There is an option to use static IP address with sections to enter IP Address, IP Subnet Mask, Gateway IP address.

DNS Address set to Get automatically from ISP. There is an option to tick on Use These DNA Servers with a box for Primary and Secondary addresses.

Router MAC Address set to Use Default Address. Can be changed to Use Computer MAC address, or Use this MAC address with a field to enter it in.

Hope the further information helps!

Message was edited by: Robotwars

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Answer 5

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,252 points

Feb 22, 2009 8:29 AM in response to Robotwars

Did you ever set up the Router to forward the UTorrent port to your Mac's IP address? You say you read about it, but you didn't actually say that you configured your router to do that. Initially I assumed you did, but based on the last post, I'm not so sure.

Did you either turn off the Mac's Firewall (System Prefs, Security, Firewall>Allow all incoming connections), or allow UTorrent to access the Internet through your firewall? For now, I would just turn the Mac's firewall off until you get the port to forward.

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Answer 6

Robotwars Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 22, 2009 8:37 AM in response to Barney-15E

Hello Barney,

My firewall is definitely off, and it is allowing all incoming connections.

In fact, here are a few screenshots of my router and Mac Network settings - I've compared this to the www.portforward.com's suggestions and I just cannot seem to find what I've done wrong.

[IMG] http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/8633/router1.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[IMG] http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/7441/router2.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[IMG] http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/5981/router3.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[IMG] http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/8697/network1.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[IMG] http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/8981/network2.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Unless I'm suffering a sudden case of braindeath, I just cannot see what is wrong, which is why I'm so frustrated!

Message was edited by: Robotwars

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Answer 7

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,252 points

Feb 22, 2009 8:46 AM in response to Robotwars

Those images are too small. I can't read them.

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