Internal IP Address?

[Kyhl]

First of all, all mythical numbers.

I am trying to set a trial version of a media streaming software on my home pc and am having issues assigning the internal IP address of the machine.

The software loads a tracker of your external IP address that is stored securely on their server to track the dynamic external IP address. The tracker uses port 52200 on the external IP address, so 20.XXX.1.XXX:52200 from the outside world.

From there I set a port forwarding rule on my ethernet hub (Linksys) to direct requests for port 52200 to my internal IP address.

At least I think I did. I created the port forwarding rule but I am not sure that it is pointed to the correct internal IP address.

At least I think so, because when I test the port from an outside source, it fails, times out. Basically nothing happens.

This is with or without the firewall running. Which, I also created an exception in the firewall to allow port 52200.

I found my internal IP address using cmd/ipconfig (XP machine. yeah, I know right?) This listed 168.XXX.1.XXX and was entered into the port forwarding.

The internet runs from a DSL modem to the linksys to the computer. I am stuck and know just enough to get myself into trouble. Luckily, I haven't broken anything yet.

Any networking guru's have any suggestions? It almost seems to me that I need to assign something at the modem level but I don't see any instructions suggesting that.

[upnorth]

OK I know what you are tying to do.

The external IP address will be the one from your router or DSL/Cable modem. If you are running a secondary router/wireless device other than theirs the IP on that one won't work.

Typical internal/private ip addresses are going to look like:

192.168.x.x

172.16.x.x

10.x.x.x.x

So if your outside address looks like any of those you need to go another step further(and some ISPs run private addressing to the home and if that is the case you are screwed).

Public address will be most anything other than that. Other than the 224.0.0.0 to 224.0.0.255 for multicast and you shouldn't see that at all.

If you have two network devices you will need to forward that port to both.

So you would need to forward from the cable/dsl box to the internal router(wireless) to the internal PC. And you would be best off doing a DHCP assignment on the router so you get the same IP address each time the address lease expires.

[delcecchi]

What is the media streaming software that needs port forwarding?

[Kyhl]

JRiver. I am tired of cloud services "matching" my music. I haven't spent thousands searching for certain versions of my music for these services to chose to use an inferior version of an album.

The last straw was Dire Straights, Brothers In Arms. I've gone through a couple CD's and multiple LP's to find the right pressing, which I digitized so I can hear it anywhere. No matter how many times I press fix match on Google Play, it is not giving me the LP version that I recorded. It is giving me some bright sounding compressed mash.

I've had it with cloud services so I thought I would try JRiver and stream music directly from home. If that works, I may add a NAS as the next step.

Off soapbox.

[Kyhl]

Upnort, so if I'm reading that correctly, the IP address the ethernet sees is different than external from the modem. So you are suggesting either make changes at the modem or use DHCP, correct?

I don't know anything about DHCP so more reading is in order.

[upnorth]

If this is what you have you will have IP addresses at the following interfaces.

DSL modem - outside(the interface going to the wall) this should be public address

DSL modem - inside( going to the wireless router) this should be private address

Wireless router - outside (going to the DSL modem) this should be private address

Wireless router - inside (going to the internal devices) this should be private address

Internal devices - laptops, PCs, phones etc. this should be private address

DHCP = Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. That is what assigns IP addresses, Gateways, DNS(Domain Name Servers, basically takes a URL and gives the actual IP address) to the local internal devices.

If nothing else it may clear up what is where.

[delcecchi]

I thought the IP address at the input to the router was the address that is visible to the world. Is that not true? The modem has smarts to translate the address?

[upnorth]

I thought the IP address at the input to the router was the address that is visible to the world. Is that not true? The modem has smarts to translate the address?

In the world of networking not really. The modems in this case actually do both, modulate/demodulate and route.

In the routing world routing lives by the next hop or default gateway. If a router doesn't see an IP address in its routing table it sends it to its default gateway and if that device doesn't know about the address it does the same. Private addressing is not routed on the internet so as soon as it hits an internet router it stops. That is where NAT comes in. An edge router setup with NAT will add a line to the IP packet with its own public address to be routable on the internet and a pointer to the internal address when it returns so it knows who to send it back to.

Depending on the complexity of the network you can have many internal routers that have private address on both interfaces(or many interfaces on big iron routers) and either static, connected or dynamic routes to other internal networks or the web.

The terms of routing most people with a simple home network it is much easier. Mine here I have a DSL router/modem that does the routing/DSL modem/wireless functions. The network I play with a work has router/firewalls/VPN/layer 3 swithes(core switches that will also route) all over the place. A packet could easily hit 8 to 10 routing devices before it gets to the internet and then all the internet routers.

[aanderud]

First, I'd double-check your internal IP and compare to what you have in your forwarding setup in the router. I've never seen a router set up to serve IP addresses that start with 168. As upnorth mentioned, they almost always start with 192.168 in the first two octets (which is a block of IP addresses that was reserved for 'internal' use). The 168.x.x.x subnets are all asssigned to folks For instance, 168.2.x.x through 168.7.x.x was assigned to Rice University, and the 168.32.x.x through 168.60.x.x subnet was assigned to the texas department of information resources. As such, I seriously doubt that your router is handing out 168.x.x.x addresses internally -- and if it is, you should reconfigure it so that it isn't any more. Use 192.168.x.x

As for having to forward the port twice (once on the modem and once on the router) -- I'd say it's unlikely that you need to do this. I've had three DSL services and two cable modem services in the last 10 years in three different cities, and only one has done routing at the cable or DSL modem (though all of the modems have had that capability). The rest of the units forwarded the external IP address to my wifi router. I ended up turning it off at the one that did it at the modem so that I could more easily control these type of things. So, odds are that you're only going to have to do the port forwarding rule one time, at your router. Check your router to see what the WAN IP address is -- if it matches what you see at "www.whatismyip.com", you're golden and will need only one port forwarding rule.

Now is where things can get ugly -- even after you tell the router to forward connections on that port to your PC's internal IP, you might not be able to get to your service when you're coming from your wifi network (which is in the private IP subnet). My old router would not allow connections that orignate from the inside of my network (the private IP address subnet) to be forwarded to my internet camera here. It would just time out when I was connecting from a private IP. My new router doesn't block it, however. I know I'm not the only one that has this problem, as a buddy called me up when setting up his nursery camera and had the same issue -- he had to disconnect his phone from the wifi and let it come in through the cell phone network and the external IP in order to get it to forward the traffic to the camera.

[upnorth]

The typical(may not be all) router/wireless device acts as a firewall also. Depending on the router you may need to add a rule to allow the traffic through to the inside address. The default is deny all traffic incoming and without a rule to allow the traffic the firewall will block all incoming traffic.

And in fairness on some of those IP addresses he posted in his original post he said the number are fictitious.

[Kyhl]

aanderud, notice that I said all addresses posted were mythical. You are correct, I am not on 168.XXX.

Upnorth, yes, that is how my home network is set up. A DSL modem hardwired to an ethernet hub that broadcasts wireless and is hardwired to my PC and hardwired to my Dtv box. It may end up being hardwired to a NAS at some point and to a DAC but that is a ways off in the future.

Thanks for the input guys. I haven't had a chance to look into it yet. Maybe this weekend.

[delcecchi]

Thanks for the explanation. I have only had experience with the cable modem at home and the accessmn modem at the cabin. I think both of them just pass stuff to the router. The Access folks were pretty adamant that a router had to be installed between the computer and the modem.

But I have never had to forward a port either. Chromecast and utorrent seem to take care of it somehow.

[fishnowworknever]

Just jumping in at the end here, all great advice above.

This is a fantastic tool to check your open ports from within your own home network but looking in from the outside...

http://www.canyouseeme.org/

You said you opened up the firewall ports...Guessing you meant on your XP machine where the service is running?

Make sure your machine running the streaming software has a static IP as well, if DHCP is used and you port forward to the current internal IP and that IP changes...it won't work anymore.

[Kyhl]

My understanding is the service monitors the dynamic external IP address and corrects itself.

I have tested this and the external address of the home PC that is listed on the phone app does change as the IP address changes. They are doing it this way because everyone uses dynamic external addresses now.

I think that is part of my confusion because I don't think the router is seeing the external address anyway so adding port forwarding to the ethernet does not fix the problem when there is a modem upstream that is also adjusting the external view.

[upnorth]

go here for public IP address

That link will give you the public address that your PC is getting from whatever NAT device it goes through to get the web. Once you find the device that has that IP address you need to forward from there. Depending on how things are setup you may need to forward twice.

Someone else made a good point, your PC no matter what version of windows needs to be able to listen on that port as well as the firewall forwarding it to your PC.

[delcecchi]

I am now curious. What is the software that needs port forwarding?

[fishnowworknever]

Does your DSL modem act as a router as well? Are you able to plug more than 1 ethernet cable into the back of it?

If so, you'll want to enable bridging on the wireless router.

One way to verify...on the computer in question connected to your wireless run an ipconfig /all from a command prompt

Then, with a laptop or any other available PC, plug in an ethernet cable to the DSL modem, run an ipconfig /all

Note the differences in:

1. Ip address

2. Subnet mask

3. Default Gateway

[Kyhl]

Del, maybe I wasn't clear enough.

The software is JRiver Media Center.

It is supposed to be able to run, maintain, and stream music and movie servers internal and externally. Also is able to act as a DVR from my understanding but I am not going there yet.

[delcecchi]

Del, maybe I wasn't clear enough.

The software is JRiver Media Center.

It is supposed to be able to run, maintain, and stream music and movie servers internal and externally. Also is able to act as a DVR from my understanding but I am not going there yet.

Sorry if you said. I might have missed it.

I have used Plex which is sort of similar except I never tried to access it from outside my home.

[Whoaru99]

When doing this sort of thing I usually start with as basic and direct of connection as possible, even if that means using DMZ or direct to the modem for a short time. Once I've established the basics work then I start adding the complexities of port forwarding, firewall/traffic rules, etc.

[Whoaru99]

OK, so since I last posted I installed the trial version, set up the servers, and now can access what I set up on my computer/server from my smartphone using the Gizmo app.

1. Allow the install (or set up yourself) Media Center 19 access through the Windows firewall.

2. Set up port forwarding rule in router, in my case it was forward to 192.168.1.101 on TCP port 52199.

3. It works.

[Kyhl]

I haven't had a chance to revisit this. I have some time next week.

Do you have a combined modem router or a separate modem and router?

[Whoaru99]

Separate, like your picture, except a cable modem and some hardwired devices too.

That brings up a good point I think someone mentioned earlier. There may be some sort of additional isolation on the wireless side. The server I set up is on a wired connection to the router. I'd check to see if there is something like an AP Isolation setting in the router.

[Kyhl]

Btw, if you are planning to use JRiver, I have read that V20 is expected soon. If you pay for V19 now the activation code is supposed to work with V20. That is what I've heard anyway. Otherwise, it's $20 to upgrade.

[fishnowworknever]

Exactly, you'll have two different subenets if you're using two routers...which isn't all that fun for port forwarding.

The downstream router would need to be in bridge mode/Access Point mode for the easiest setup.