port forwarding.
 

SO I have a computer program that uses a certain port. I have to open that port up in windows firewall to make the program work.

now I've got this coupter behind a router. I figured I could just turn the router firewall off, but that still doesn't work.

so I tryed port forwarding. fowarding that port to the local IP of the computer using the program. and it works.

but now the issue is, the router is DCHP, and the computer running this program will change IP's when it's turned on and off with other computers in the network. So the port forwarding will probably only work sometimes. (I've already had another computer take the IP from the first one)


so I guess I'll have to make this computer a static local IP? outside the range of the router DCHP settings. and then forward the router to the static IP so it always works...

What else can I do? I was hoping the settings would be as easy as possible, because the comptuers and routers will be changed often... (sometimes by people who don't know anything) so the more setup needed, the more work everytime they are changed..

it sounds like you know what you're doing..
As you said, you need to set the computer's IP to a static IP outside of the DHCP range.
You should do this at the router level as well (leave the computer as dhcp). Tell the router to assign a certain IP to the computer based on the computer's MAC address. Each time the computer connects to the router, it'll get the same local IP back.

edit: just re-read your post.. you mean that the computer (with the program) and the router will both be changing quite often? If that's the case.. I'm not sure what you can do.. if you change the computer and router.. of course *something* is gonna have to get reconfigured..

well hopefully not that often, only when there is problems. it would be nice to leave the computer with default settings, since that would likly get changed more often then the router. so leaving the computer with DHCP would be nice. but the mac address would change with the computer, so your way would still require setup changes if a computer was swaped.

I noticed another setting about DMZ or something like that, which put a computer outside the router? I'm guessing that is IP bassed as well though.

Ideally, you'd want to set up the static IP via DHCP on your router, but many of the cheaper routers don't have this functionality, which means you would have to set the static IP on the computer.

Ideally I'd put it infront of the router. but I only get one IP from the ISP.

or better yet, get rid of this stupid in house made program my work uses for something better :lol

Set your computer static IP to outside the router DHCP scope. If your using a Linksys router the DHCP starts from 192.168.1.100 >

so you would want to static your computer to anything below 192.168.1.100 and 192.168.1.1. Assuming nothing else is static in your network, you should static the pc your forwarding to 192.168.1.2 then forward the port to that address on the router.

can I still port forward if my ISP doesn't support static IP? which mean it gives me a random ip everytime I turn on my PC

There are two IP addresses. One for inside your house and one for out to the world. They are separate and have no relationship to each other. For port forwarding you set the static IP for inside your house. This has nothing to do with your ISP.

You only need to port forward if your PC is behind a router.

If I'm not mistaking what you're saying, it sounds like your PC is connected directly to the modem. If that's the case, you don't need port forwarding... what you need is dynamic DNS.

One site that offers this is http://www.no-ip.com/

Basically you register for a free DNS entry like asianxl.myvnc.com and then load a client on your PC that regularly checks what IP you have and updates that DNS entry.

So when you try to connect to your PC remotely, you always use asianxl.myvnc.com instead of a specific IP address.

^ yes, I am connecting my PC directly to the modem. Now I need to install a router, but it seems like BT speed is cut 1/3.

utorrent port test says my port is open (with a green check mark), but it's still slow.



Thanks for the no-ip link...not really comfortable in doing it, but i'll try.

if you manually set you ip in windows connections portion of the control panel, and dns server etc, within range of what your router is set to, it will always try to grab the ip address you set unless it's already taken.

www.portforward.com