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[AoXoMoXoA]

I am unable to reach MC across the internet using Gizmo and I believe it is a fault in my router/network setup.

I have set my router to open port 51299, but I am uncertain as to whether I have used the proper settings.

Router: Linksys E1500
Port: 52199

There is a slot for "External Port" and one for "Internal Port", I am not certain which the 52199 goes into and what number goes into the other one.
Also for PROTOCOL, do I use TDP, UDP, or Both

thanks in advance

[JimH]

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Network_Access

You want to forward all packets to the right internal IP address.

I'm not sure what external and internal mean in this case, but my guess is that they would both be 52199.

I don't remember whether it's TCP or UDP.  I think it's TCP, but Both would be fine.

[RoderickGI]

First, note that you listed two different ports in your initial post AoXoMoXoA. I'm sure one is just a typo, but you may want to check what you typed into your router. 52199 is the correct port.

The Linksys E1500 can do "Port Translation" when "Port Forwarding". It is similar to Network Address Translation (NAT) that a router does for all external network connections. The "External Port" number is the port that an incoming network connection must use to get through the router firewall. The "Internal Port" is the port number used to communicate with the PC on your home network.

For example, if you wanted to improve the security a little for your Gizmo connection to your home based MC server, you could use Port Translation. You see everybody who bothers to check knows that JRiver MC uses port 52199 for communication, so they could try to get access to your home PC through that port, since they know that it is open. By choosing a different external port for use with Gizmo, you could block any such attempt to hack into your network. So, you could choose to use say port 88333, or any other port in the high range port that isn't used by any other application.

If Jim doesn't know if the connection uses the TCP or UDP protocol, I certainly don't know. Nor can I find any information on it. Using "Both" will work, but again it is less secure to leave a communication channel open if it isn't going to be used. I suspect TCP is the correct setting. Try it and see.

If your external IP address was 176.124.30.178, and the internal IP address of your MC PC was 192.168.1.112, then the settings would be;
Application Name:            JRiver Gizmo (For example. Pick your own meaningful name.)
External Port:                   88333
Internal Port:                   52199
Protocol:                          TCP  (Or Both, or UDP. See above.)
To IP Address:                 192.168.1.112


The router would then translate not only the IP Address for communication from Gizmo outside your network, but would also translate the port number.

To connect to your MC server you would need to point Gizmo at the address; "176.124.30.178:88333" which would be translated to the internal address; "192.168.1.112:52199", and the translation would be reversed for communication in the other direction. As MC only sees communication to the PC it is on and the port it uses, it recognises the communication attempt and will respond.

Of course you can just put 52199 in both the External and Internal Port fields, and it would work fine. You would then point Gizmo at "176.124.30.178:52199" to communicate.

[AoXoMoXoA]

Thank you RoderickGI

Yes it was a typo.

I did not use the port translation, but rather had 52199 in both.  Since my settings seem correct in my Router I imagine there is some other issue preventing connection.
Perhaps there is a way to turn off firewalls and test this?

[eapool]

How are you connected to the internet?  If you are using a cable modem, you may need to open the port in that device as well.  It should be setup the same, except the address would be the address of the router.

Alex

[AoXoMoXoA]

Aha!

Cable modem, yes . . . I'll look into that, thanks

[RoderickGI]

If you are using the Linksys E1500 as your router, your cable modem should be just a modem with no built in router. If your cable modem does have a built in router then you need to tell us the make and model.

However, if you have the E1500 set up as explained then the next most likely problem is a software firewall on your target PC, being the MC Server. If it is running Windows the Windows Firewall is probably running, or if you have an antivirus solution installed such as Norton 360 then that may have a firewall.

You will need to open port 52199 on any and all firewalls running on the MC Server PC. Note that sometimes it is possible to have both the Windows Firewall and a third party software firewall running at the same time. You should just have one though, but check just in case. The Windows Security Center should tell you which firewall(s) are running.

[AoXoMoXoA]

Modem is a Motorola "SURFboard" cable modem M/N: SB6141, it does not contain a router.

I tried disabling my Comodo Internet Security's Firewall, and verified that Windows Firewall is not enabled.
I verified that I have set my Router to forward port 52199 and directed it to my PC's IP address on my LAN
I setup NoIP as my dynamic DNS server so I can locate the address over the web.

Using NoIP's Open Port Check Tool I can see that it is following my IP address correctly but yet shows that my Port 52199 is not visible as shown:
Problem!  I could not see your service on 68.202.66.71 on port (52199).
Reason: Connection timed out.

[eapool]

I just googled your modem and it looks like you will need to open the ports in that modem.  It may not be easy because your service provider may have locked things down.  Your router should have an external and internal ip address.  The external address will give you an idea what your modem ip address is.  For example if your router's external ip address is 192.168.100.100, then your modem's ip address is probably 192.168.100.1.  If you navigate to that address from a browser, you should have access to the configuration interface.  Depending on how your provider set things up, you may have to enter a password.  Google may help, or you can call tech support.  

If you can get your modem to forward this port to your router, you should be good to go.

Alex

[AoXoMoXoA]

Thanks Alex, I guess I'll need to contact my ISP to make changes to the modem as I cannot get to any settings.

[RoderickGI]

I use a Motorola myself, although a different model. Motorola Surfboard modems usually do not have any firewall, or much in the way of configuration outside what the ISP does.  They do not need any ports to be opened. They are just a dumb modem and all data is passed through them unimpeded. I don't know where you found that information Alex, but going straight to Motorola, the data sheet makes no mention of any additional functionality above what a Surfboard usually has. See http://www.arrisi.com/modems/datasheet/SB6141/SB6141_Data_Sheet.pdf

The Surfboard IP address is usually 192.168.100.1 if you wish to check it out. You will see some settings on the Configuration screen, but unless you know what you are doing, leave them alone. A router's external IP address is never going to be in the range 192.168.xxx.xxx unless it is behind another NAT router. The internal address of the Linksys E1500 is 192.168.1.1. This is exactly the same setup I have at home.

I think you need to test if you can connect Gizmo to MC while both are connected on your LAN, before checking the WAN connection further. I don't have an Android device so haven't set up Gizmo. I've only used WebGizmo. But Gizmo uses the Access key the same way.

Is your Android device a phone or tablet? Does it have a cell phone data plan as well as Wi-Fi? If your Android device has Wi-Fi and can connect to your LAN, try turning off your cell data and just leave the Wi-Fi connection on, then test that you still have internet access on the device, then try to connect Gizmo to MC. Gizmo should be able to use the Wi-Fi connection and your MC Access Key to find the internal IP address of your MC PC and connect to it. (The Access Key method checks both your external and internal IP address when trying to connect.)

Did it work? If not, is the Commodo firewall still turned off? Turn it off and try again if so. Testing this way is not using the WAN connection of the router, so you are just testing your Gizmo installation and the MC PC setup. It should work. If it doesn't you need to go back and make sure you installed Gizmo correctly, following all the steps in the Wiki article. http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Gizmo#Installing_Gizmo

If it worked then turn off Wi-Fi on your Android device, turn on cell data, ensuring that your router will see a connection coming from the internet only, and not on the LAN. Then go into your router setup and make sure that logging is turned on (Enabled) and select "Incoming Log", as per the manual. Leave the log page open and try to connect with Gizmo. You may need to refresh the page to see the attempted connection, I can't tell from the manual. You should see a connection attempt from an external IP address, with the port number 52199. So, was the connection rejected or accepted?

Let us know what you found if you get this far.

[AoXoMoXoA]

Got It!   

Uninstalled Comodo completely and went to MSE, set port forwarding in Windows Firewall and VIOLA!
So it appears that even though I set the port in Comodo either I did it wrong or it 'didn't take'   ?

Anyway, it works so there ya have it.

[RoderickGI]

Good result.

A little strange though. I haven't used Comodo Antivirus and Firewall for years but when I did the firewall looked pretty good.

MSE is a pretty good product these days anyway. Windows Firewall, basic but it works.

[AoXoMoXoA]

Other than this port forwarding issue Comodo had been working fine.

Roderick, I do wonder though, looking back at the info you wrote about Port Translation, wouldn't simply changing the port setting in Media Center to something other than 52199 accomplish the same thing?  Would that be a problem for MC or is the Port Translation advantageous for some reason?

[RoderickGI]

Yes. There are several reasons to use Port Forwarding, but in the example I gave, port obfuscation was the main reason. You could achieve the same thing by changing the MC Port (which is a TCP port by the way, as shown in the Options / Media Network / Advanced dialogue) to some port that is never used and would normally not be open, and so therefore less likely to be scanned by someone from the internet. Even then of course a port scanning tool could find any open port, if they searched all ports. Usually though people who use port scanners only scan the common and known used ports.

It looks like you couldn't actually use the port translation method I described for MC anyway, if you are going to use Gizmo both while connected on the LAN, and from some remote location on the Internet. The reason being that it appears that Gizmo would use the same port number as the setting in MC, whether it is local or remote. So if the external port is different to the internal port, Gizmo isn't going to work when it is external to the LAN, since it will try to connect with the wrong port number. Unless there is an external port setting in Gizmo, but as I said I don't use it so can't check. I doubt the Access Key functionality supports a separate port number for use with the external WAN IP Address either.

Port Translation is more commonly used when you want to direct incoming network connections to different servers on a LAN. For example, if you wanted to connect to three different PCs on a LAN via Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) from an external PC(s), where the external IP Address is the same for all internal PCs, you would use a different port number to direct traffic to different internal PC IP Addresses.

[AoXoMoXoA]

Thank you, this was both informative and helpful.

[JimH]

It looks like you couldn't actually use the port translation method I described for MC anyway, if you are going to use Gizmo both while connected on the LAN, and from some remote location on the Internet. The reason being that it appears that Gizmo would use the same port number as the setting in MC, whether it is local or remote. So if the external port is different to the internal port, Gizmo isn't going to work when it is external to the LAN, since it will try to connect with the wrong port number. Unless there is an external port setting in Gizmo, but as I said I don't use it so can't check. I doubt the Access Key functionality supports a separate port number for use with the external WAN IP Address either.

JRiver's Access Key Server keeps track of both the inside and outside IP addresses.  It also gets updated when the addresses change.

[AoXoMoXoA]

Thanks Jim, that sure makes it easy.

[RoderickGI]

Yes I understand that Jim. But it only stores one port address, and therefore can't keep track of both an internal and external port number, which is what would be required if a user wanted to implement port translation in addition to port forwarding.

Hendrik clarified that for me earlier today.