Port forwarding on Dlink

[colinbythesea]

Hi all

I am trying to set up port forwarding with FM7 using IWP running on a Mac with OSX10.2.

Has anybody had experience of the dlink di 514 router. I have set up port forwarding to the server computer with a static IP address, set the port to 591 in IWP. I can view it on the LAN but WAN access refuses to work. I have the public IP address provided by my ISP but all I can get is the set up screens of the router using the public IP.

Any help appreciated.

Ta Colin

[colinbythesea]

As often happen here, I will reply to my own post.

I eventually found out that everything was set up correctly but I was missing one small fact. You can't go out of your computer onto your LAN through your router to the Internet then back through your router to your port forwarded server with your public IP address. Had to go to the Internet Cafe up the road and it is working.

A simple fact but one I didn't know and cost me 1.5 days of frustration. Hope this helps somebody out there.

Colin

[Brudderman]

Colin,

I'm hoping that you can help me. I have a D-link 614+ and am trying to get IWP to work. I have obtained a static IP from dyndns.com and have pointed the host name obtained there (james-mc.dyndsn.org) to my WAN (router IP). Now when I go to another computer (not on the LAN and connecting to internet by dialup) and connect to the host, what I see is the router setup page.

FM IWP is set to port 80, but I don't see any settings for "port forwarding" in the router setup. Is it called something else? I have talked to D-link but that hasn't solved anything. What screen within the d-link setup do you use, and what ports did you specify?

Any suggestions or thoughts would be appreciated.

James

Edited November 27, 2005 by Guest

[colinbythesea]

Hi James,

I will try and describe the process as much as I can for you and anybody else struggling with routers.

First in Filemaker set your IWP port to 591. This is assigned to Filemaker and will stop any conflicts with other ports. Look in the IWP and note the IP address. This is the Local network (LAN) address, try it from your web browser, if you get the Filemaker publishing page then you are publishing but only on your LAN

Next you need to get your web static address connecting through the router to your computer with IWP running. The IP address on your LAN will continually change as it is decided by the router using DHCP. In your routers configuration pages find DHCP and set the range of the last 3 numbers of the LAN IP address range from 100 to 255, this gives you use of 1 to 100. Next choose one of these numbers for your IWP computer and find port forwarding (called virtual server in my d514) in your router and set the external port 591 to connect to internal port 591 on the IP number you have chosen for your computer. For example mine is 198.168.0.8 because I chose 8 as the fixed address.

Now you need to set your IWP computer IP address by manually configuring it to the one you chose, mine is set to the number above 198.168.0.8. You will no longer be connecting to the LAN using DHCP but with a fixed address the router will know that this is where to send port 591 traffic. Can't help much with static addresses on windows as we use Macs and I haven't played with windows for years.

Try connecting with another computer from outside of your network, dial up is useful here. Use the static IP address provided by your ISP in its number form first with :591 at the end. When you get that connecting then divert your domain name.

Try this link for more info http://www.portforward.com/default.htm.

Colin

[Brudderman]

Thank you, Colin, for this very thorough and helpful reply! It answers many questions that I have had.

By the way, I have been able to get this working by another method and thought I might mention that here as well in case it would help someone else.

Port 80 works for me, so I haven't had to take the 591 route as you have. In the router setup, then, I go the Advanced > DMZ and enter the IP address that appears in the IWP setup dialog to expose it to the internet.

I also had to obtain a host name (e.g., myhostname.dyndns.org) with a static IP address, which I obtained through dyndns.com, and I pointed that to the IP address in the IWP setup. Then by entering this URL (sample only) in the browser, I connect to the IWP homepage:

http://myhostname.dyndns.org/fmi/iwp/

All works well so far. Thanks for the help!

[colinbythesea]

Hi James,

The DMZ (demilitarised zone) is a great way to test out your link, however it lets down all of your routers security. So its worth setting up the forwarding if you want the full protection your router can offer to your network. From my experiences with Macs they are individually well protected if you can keep all of the firewalls in the OS up, again I know nothing of windows. If you have a router it would suggest there are a number of machines that need connecting so its worth making sure they have firewalls set and running if they are on the same router.

Colin

[Brudderman]

Thanks, Colin.

I have turned off the DMZ feature for now. Hopefully if the IWP looks practical in the future (which it doesn't for now), I'll look at the forwarding idea. And I've got a good resource here to use.

I appreciate the help!