NAT Issues for the networking N00B
Having trouble connecting to games or parties, or are your friends having trouble connecting to you? Then this guide might be just for you. Unfortunately this is most likely not going to be a quick fix if your un aware of how your network devices work and help you connect to the internet then hopefully this will help give you a better understanding. Don’t fret with a little bit of work this issue will be a faint memory after some changes in the settings of your router.
IP ADDRESSES and NAT
Basically an IP Address is a name for a computer. A computer can have as many ip addresses as you want to give it, but every computer that wants to send or receive data on the internet needs to have an ip address.
An ip address is a set of four three digit numbers divided by periods. The numbers of an ip address range from 0 to 255. An ip address acts as an identification number for a computer. It lets other computers know which computer it is. Because an ip address acts as identification number, no two computers on the internet can have the same ip address.
Computers that are in an internal network can be separated from the internet by something called NAT. Computers behind NAT do not have ip address that are directly on the internet. There are some ip addresses that are reserved for internal networks. Here are a couple common ones.
192.168.x.x 10.0.x.x Where x can represent any number from 0 to 255.
Moving On
Unfortunately, each manufacturer has a different setup page for each type of router, which makes it difficult to give a step-by-step for you to alleviate this problem. Below is a website that helps show you how to move around on the configuration page for almost any kind of router on the market. But first here are some terms you need to know to help better understand what you’re about to do.
Modem This device allows you to connect to the internet. Sometimes this may be combined with a router as well (see below)
Router Accompanied by the modem, this device allows you to split your internet connection to multiple devices, while also allowing some basic security.
Port Think of this like a doorway into your network. Certain programs use certain ports which sometimes need to be told to be open for that program to operate.
uPnP Stands for Universal Plug and Play. This is a feature in your router that allows certain programs (that also support uPnP) to easily configure for a connection without any setup on the router.
DMZ A security setting in the router that allows a connection into a particular device(s) on your network without any intervention with the firewall.
First thing you must do is figure out what make and model router you have. Some popular makes are Linksys, D-Link, Belkin, etc. and the model is usually on a sticker somewhere on the router. After you determined your make and model head to this address to look up a guide for your particular router. You may have to skip an ad on this website; some guides on this page have a guide particularly for setting up your router for Xbox Live.
The Easy Ways
uPnP is probably the easiest way to alleviate this problem, but depending on the age of your router this may not be an option. If your router doesn’t have this option, don’t fret you might be able to download a firmware to update the capabilities of your router. When uPnP is enabled your xbox should simply connect, this is why most people seem to be able to connect to live with an open NAT setting without any change in router settings.
The other option is DMZ which isn’t as easy as uPnP but is still relatively simple. To do this you have to set your Xbox 360 to use a Static IP Address. This simply means that instead of your router giving your 360 an IP address automatically, you set it to use the same IP Address. You have to do this because when you set up DMZ in your router it usually needs it to be a particular IP Address. This requires a slight knowledge of IP Address’ and how they work. The other downside to DMZ is because most routers only allow one networked device to be set up on DMZ which won’t work with multiple 360s in one house.
Remember there are two types of IP Addresses, there’s your WAN (Wide Area Network) IP address which is the address all your network devices use to connect to the internet, and a LAN (Local Area Network) IP address which is an address that each networked device uses to identify themselves within your network. Your LAN Address is given out by your router, and your WAN Address is given out by your Internet service provider. LAN IP addresses usually look something like 192.168.x.x or 10.0.x.x. the first x will be the same number for everything on your network, the second x will be unique to each device.
So let’s pretend that your network is using a 192.168.1.x setup. Your router will be 192.168.1.1 (it always uses the very first number in the address area), and your Xbox could be using any ip address between 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.255. Keep in mind that your PCs and Smart phones will be using IP Addresses so when you pick a IP address to use as your 360s static IP should be higher up in the numbers like 192.168.1.100 or above because only one device can use an IP Address in your network or else both devices won’t connect.
The Hard Way
The Xbox 360 requires ports 53, 80, 88, 1863 and 3074 to connect to Live. The ONLY reason you’ll need to use these numbers is if your router doesn’t support uPnP or DMZ and Port Forwarding is the only option. Port forwarding is telling your router to keep these ports open; this isn’t the best option because it’s more complicated than the other two options and because of security reasons for leaving these ‘doors’ open.
Every router has a port forwarding option. In this page you have to set up a rule for each port that needs to be open, and just like the DMZ option you have to set the your Xbox’s IP address to a static number. Because when port forwarding you have to tell it which device to open the port for, which is done by telling it the devices IP address.
Closing comments
Hopefully this post has helped anybody struggling with NAT issues. Happy gaming!
Having trouble connecting to games or parties, or are your friends having trouble connecting to you? Then this guide might be just for you. Unfortunately this is most likely not going to be a quick fix if your un aware of how your network devices work and help you connect to the internet then hopefully this will help give you a better understanding. Don’t fret with a little bit of work this issue will be a faint memory after some changes in the settings of your router.
IP ADDRESSES and NAT
Basically an IP Address is a name for a computer. A computer can have as many ip addresses as you want to give it, but every computer that wants to send or receive data on the internet needs to have an ip address.
An ip address is a set of four three digit numbers divided by periods. The numbers of an ip address range from 0 to 255. An ip address acts as an identification number for a computer. It lets other computers know which computer it is. Because an ip address acts as identification number, no two computers on the internet can have the same ip address.
Computers that are in an internal network can be separated from the internet by something called NAT. Computers behind NAT do not have ip address that are directly on the internet. There are some ip addresses that are reserved for internal networks. Here are a couple common ones.
192.168.x.x 10.0.x.x Where x can represent any number from 0 to 255.
Moving On
Unfortunately, each manufacturer has a different setup page for each type of router, which makes it difficult to give a step-by-step for you to alleviate this problem. Below is a website that helps show you how to move around on the configuration page for almost any kind of router on the market. But first here are some terms you need to know to help better understand what you’re about to do.
Modem This device allows you to connect to the internet. Sometimes this may be combined with a router as well (see below)
Router Accompanied by the modem, this device allows you to split your internet connection to multiple devices, while also allowing some basic security.
Port Think of this like a doorway into your network. Certain programs use certain ports which sometimes need to be told to be open for that program to operate.
uPnP Stands for Universal Plug and Play. This is a feature in your router that allows certain programs (that also support uPnP) to easily configure for a connection without any setup on the router.
DMZ A security setting in the router that allows a connection into a particular device(s) on your network without any intervention with the firewall.
First thing you must do is figure out what make and model router you have. Some popular makes are Linksys, D-Link, Belkin, etc. and the model is usually on a sticker somewhere on the router. After you determined your make and model head to this address to look up a guide for your particular router. You may have to skip an ad on this website; some guides on this page have a guide particularly for setting up your router for Xbox Live.
The Easy Ways
uPnP is probably the easiest way to alleviate this problem, but depending on the age of your router this may not be an option. If your router doesn’t have this option, don’t fret you might be able to download a firmware to update the capabilities of your router. When uPnP is enabled your xbox should simply connect, this is why most people seem to be able to connect to live with an open NAT setting without any change in router settings.
The other option is DMZ which isn’t as easy as uPnP but is still relatively simple. To do this you have to set your Xbox 360 to use a Static IP Address. This simply means that instead of your router giving your 360 an IP address automatically, you set it to use the same IP Address. You have to do this because when you set up DMZ in your router it usually needs it to be a particular IP Address. This requires a slight knowledge of IP Address’ and how they work. The other downside to DMZ is because most routers only allow one networked device to be set up on DMZ which won’t work with multiple 360s in one house.
Remember there are two types of IP Addresses, there’s your WAN (Wide Area Network) IP address which is the address all your network devices use to connect to the internet, and a LAN (Local Area Network) IP address which is an address that each networked device uses to identify themselves within your network. Your LAN Address is given out by your router, and your WAN Address is given out by your Internet service provider. LAN IP addresses usually look something like 192.168.x.x or 10.0.x.x. the first x will be the same number for everything on your network, the second x will be unique to each device.
So let’s pretend that your network is using a 192.168.1.x setup. Your router will be 192.168.1.1 (it always uses the very first number in the address area), and your Xbox could be using any ip address between 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.255. Keep in mind that your PCs and Smart phones will be using IP Addresses so when you pick a IP address to use as your 360s static IP should be higher up in the numbers like 192.168.1.100 or above because only one device can use an IP Address in your network or else both devices won’t connect.
The Hard Way
The Xbox 360 requires ports 53, 80, 88, 1863 and 3074 to connect to Live. The ONLY reason you’ll need to use these numbers is if your router doesn’t support uPnP or DMZ and Port Forwarding is the only option. Port forwarding is telling your router to keep these ports open; this isn’t the best option because it’s more complicated than the other two options and because of security reasons for leaving these ‘doors’ open.
Every router has a port forwarding option. In this page you have to set up a rule for each port that needs to be open, and just like the DMZ option you have to set the your Xbox’s IP address to a static number. Because when port forwarding you have to tell it which device to open the port for, which is done by telling it the devices IP address.
Closing comments
Hopefully this post has helped anybody struggling with NAT issues. Happy gaming!