5 replies to this topic

[AticAtac]

Hi,
as in the topic my machine sits behind a router.
I would like for testing purposes to run my selfmade gameserver on the machine and to reach it from outside (internet).
Is that possible ? What have to do in order to achieve this ?

[awood]

The first obstacle you need to overcome to get this working is to check with your ISP. I originally had Time Warner Cable as my ISP, and my game server ran just fine. After relocating, I was forced to switch to Cox Communications, and to my discontent, they block all "residential" users from hosting any type of server, be it game server or web server. In my case, I will have to either switch ISPs (not possible for me atm) or upgrade to their Business package ($$$$).

Provided that you get beyond this point, you need to set up a virtual server (or port forwarding) on your router, so that traffic arriving at your router port XXXX will be directed to your LAN ip at port XXXX.

[geon]

Here, I have a DSL connection with my own real IP. This is shared to the computers in the house by a NAT router. In the admin interface of our router, there are some predefined port forwardings you can activate, such as www or FTP, or you can define your own.

Note that the router can only forward a port number to one single server, so you can just have one web server (using port 80) in the entire LAN.

[AticAtac]

Thx for the answers !

In our small "town" there is no DSL available, so what we (~15 houses) did was to use WLAN and get DSL from a nearby town and share it. It works so far great and although its only 1Mbit DSL we can surf smoothly. Looks like i have to talk to our admin to set up the router for me or find someone else not sitting behind a router running my game-server.

[Rydinare]

You can set one machine to be outside the router using the DMZ feature of your router. However, this is not recommended and probably not necessary. The better idea is to use the port forwarding feature of your router and forward the ports that your game uses right to your machine, so any time someone wants to connect on a port, say 9876, the connection goes straight to your machine.

[Shed]

Hello AticAtac...

My personal opinion...(really i don't have very experienced with Routing) but here it's...

If you have a Router inside your house, office or so....usually only configured for a few know ports (for example the base port for messenger service, or port 21 to FTP service), this ports sometimes are "open" sometimes not ;)....then into the Router control Panel (usually reached by http/HTML control panel when you have the user/pass required to log into this panel)

- The NAPT mode (section) : when an incoming TCP connection "arrives" to your Router unit....(that's the Router machine connected to LAN giving internet access)
the router receive the conection...and in NAPT mode...you manually "remap" the incoming data...to local machine at LAN (this is...the IP machine having the server program for your game or so....we'll suppose that your server game is on 192.168.0.4 machine in port 12000 called for example "SERVER1")

Then you modify the Router control panel...and make NAPT mode to a this IP and port 12000 (then you're saying to Router..."ey man, all that arrives to this port...send it to SERVER1 machine....but saying it in IP and port numbers....it's assumed that you know what's your LAN machines IP's conected to your router...)

(i think that you must remap 2 times...for TCP and also the same remap for UDP protocols)

then...once you have properly modified the NAPT mode (new server IP remapped to your server-machine on your LAN), you receive all the incoming transmisions to this port....mapped to a LAN machine...(here mentioned as SERVER1 for example)

Then...in this machine...usually you have the Resident Server program...24h/day running with the communications processes (for players conections, or gameplay info...etc...whatever you're thinking to use in your application....)

Ah, if you use a machine for development...and you can have another CPU case connected to the same LAN as Server, it's ideal....because it's the only way for test over the "land" the network communications...you put the "server process" started...and waiting data in a certain "port" and make the necessary tests...