topic Port forwarding doesn't seem to be working in Broadband

Port forwarding doesn't seem to be working

golden_fibre — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 17:33:43 GMT

I'm trying to port forward port 80 so I can access my security cameras on the internet.

In the router's firewall settings I've set it like so:

Then I found out my public IP (also on the router's status page). But accessing that directly just times out, and setting a DNS record pointing to it doesn't work either, timeout.

I have a static IP which I set up today, and it said it would work right away after router restart (which I did).

Top of the router admin page says "Plusnet Hub Two", so that's my router.

Any idea what could be going on?

Thanks.

Re: Port forwarding doesn't seem to be working

Dan_the_Van — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 18:14:28 GMT

@golden_fibre welcome to the forum

Are you trying to port forward to a NVR or individual camera's, as port forwarding rules is a one to one association. You can only set a rule to forward to one device.

There are no issues with port forwarding on the Hub Two

Re: Port forwarding doesn't seem to be working

golden_fibre — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 18:43:03 GMT

Cheers!

I've got a reverse proxy to an interface showing all the cameras, so I only need to port forward ports 80 and 443.

The thing missing from the port forward screenshot is that these port are going to my home server device.

All working fine on localhost with a port number, just can't access it externally.

Just not sure what I'm missing here, all the settings seem fine, is the public IP not the `Broadband IP address` from the status page?

Where my settings are port forward 80/443 and then an nginx reverse proxy on my home server handles the rest.

Re: Port forwarding doesn't seem to be working

Dan_the_Van — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 18:58:34 GMT

All working fine on localhost with a port number

What is the port number?

Look at http://192.168.1.254 >Advanced Settings >Technical Log >Event log

Try to connect and look at the event log reporting a inbound port forward connection

How does it read

Re: Port forwarding doesn't seem to be working

Champnet — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 19:02:19 GMT

Is your fixed IP address working yet ?

Check here : https://www.whatsmyip.org/

Re: Port forwarding doesn't seem to be working

golden_fibre — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 19:21:28 GMT

@Dan_the_Van wrote:

All working fine on localhost with a port number

What is the port number?

Look at http://192.168.1.254 >Advanced Settings >Technical Log >Event log

Try to connect and look at the event log reporting a inbound port forward connection

How does it read

I just mean I can connect to it just fine on my local network `server_ip:5000`, and `localhost:5000` on the server itself.

No logs coming in about port forwarding, not when I visit my public IP, nor the domain with the DNS record pointing to that public IP.

Is your fixed IP address working yet ?

Always get the same IP at least, and that's the IP my DNS record is pointing to.

Re: Port forwarding doesn't seem to be working

Dan_the_Van — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 19:24:23 GMT

If you are connecting on port 5000 on your internal network, why have you set up forward rules for port 80 and 443?

Broadband IP address: on the status page is your public IP Address

Re: Port forwarding doesn't seem to be working

golden_fibre — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 19:27:43 GMT

The service itself is running on port 5000 but I don't want to expose that, so I've got an nginx reverse proxy on port 80/443 that forwards to those services running on the box (so I can force https). I can also connect to `server_ip:80` and `localhost:80` just fine, just shows the nginx message, which I would expect to see when visiting that public IP address.

Re: Port forwarding doesn't seem to be working

Dan_the_Van — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 19:49:41 GMT

To me this is rather odd, you don't want to expose port 5000 but you are happy to use ports 80 and 443 ?

I would have created a rule to forward say 56067 outside to 5000 inside.

a working port forward rule would look something like

19:37:22, 12 Nov. FWL Port Forward Server(internal IP Address) UDP 56067 accepted a new connection from <IP address of the attaching device>

I used to run Zoneminder all I did was http://<my public IP>:56000, the port forward rule was outside 56000 to inside 80

I like to keep things simple

Edit: this site will help to see if the rule works https://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/open-ports/ or https://www.canyouseeme.org/ it is important the application is listening for connections

Re: Port forwarding doesn't seem to be working

golden_fibre — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 19:51:07 GMT

I just want more control than exposing the whole service, security reasons, so the flow would be 80 -> 443 -> 5000.

Also got a DNS record pointing to the public IP, myservice.mydomain.com.

Request comes in on that domain, nginx forwards to the internal service on port 5000, and doing the http -> https if needed, with a lets encrypt cert.

But it should work the same way, just port 80 instead of 56067, doesn't make any sense why it's not working.

Re: Port forwarding doesn't seem to be working

golden_fibre — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 19:53:46 GMT

Thanks for the links, guess this explains it:

> Port 80 is closed on [public IP]

It's just not working.

Re: Port forwarding doesn't seem to be working

Dan_the_Van — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 19:59:23 GMT

A place to check, there is a account firewall which can block some ports, it is found in the members centre

From the members centre home page navigate from >Broadband, scroll down to "Broadband Firewall" found on the right side of the screen.

I suggest turning it off if it isn't

HTH

Re: Port forwarding doesn't seem to be working

golden_fibre — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 20:13:33 GMT

I don't seem to have that option, maybe not enabled or something.

Also followed some links here, https://www.plus.net/help/broadband/about-plusnets-broadband-firewall/, can't find Firewall settings anywhere.

Re: Port forwarding doesn't seem to be working

hoaxy32 — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 20:21:45 GMT

I'm currently facing the same issue. I operate several services that require external access, and everything was running smoothly until a few days ago when it suddenly stopped working. Despite multiple attempts at configuration resets and gaining a few grey hairs, there's been no improvement. Port forward checker websites indicate that all ports either time out or display as 'closed.'

While internal access within the LAN with specific ports remains unaffected and work as intended, external access is being blocked. At this juncture, it seems plausible that the issue lies with Plusnet blocking the ports being forwarded.

I hope a resolution can be reached sooner rather than later, and do we know if Plusnet are aware of this?

Re: Port forwarding doesn't seem to be working

golden_fibre — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 20:28:25 GMT

Good to hear it's not only me, because I'm pretty sure all my settings are correct, but the port is just always closed, even tried other ports than 80, same story.

@Dan_the_Van Thanks for the help.

Re: Port forwarding doesn't seem to be working

hoaxy32 — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 20:38:03 GMT

You're definitely not alone; I've spent hours troubleshooting my router, and switch, trying to identify any configuration conflicts that might be causing this issue. However, deep down, I know that I haven't made any changes to configuration. Upon inspecting the logs, I noticed that no packets are reaching my WAN port that includes port number data. This observation strongly suggests that the issue lies with Plusnet.

Re: Port forwarding doesn't seem to be working

Champnet — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 21:06:35 GMT

worth checking.

Open port checker : Www.grc.com

Re: Port forwarding doesn't seem to be working

hoaxy32 — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 21:21:39 GMT

Unfortunately, that resource won't be of much help to us. Nonetheless, thank you for suggesting it. Is there a way we can directly contact Plusnet technical support to look deeper into this issue?

Re: Port forwarding doesn't seem to be working

Dan_the_Van — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 08:20:35 GMT

I have not had any issues with port forwarding either TCP, UDP. some examples I've created in the past, the RDP one did work.

@golden_fibre

I would suggest you try creating a rule to forward port 5000 external to 5000 internal so see if it works, if you are worried about exposing 5000 on the internet then create a map as I did for RDP.

I would always advise not to use common port for forwarding as these are often probed, where possible I use ports in the range 49152–65535

HTH

Re: Port forwarding doesn't seem to be working

Champnet — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 09:16:56 GMT

@golden_fibre Have you enabled Plusnet's safeguard ?

Have you got any port forwarding working ?