In depth Port Forwarding

[Nyquist]

Hi.

Have a few friends I wanna play an online experience in Terraria with, but despite my sincerest efforts I'm unable to fully grasp the nature of port forwarding. Which has led my servers to be successful 30% of the time and not know what i did wrong..

So here is where I need you'r help...

Having 2 Steps..
My Fire Wall which is 1..
and Router which is 2..

1 In my fire wall.. Upon Installation i clicked yes to allow Terraria in the allowed apps.. The first thing i did. Deeper in the Advanced Settings, I licked Inbound Rules > New Rule > Port Option > TPC with the specified Port 7777 > All types of connections selected > And FInally i Named this Terraria TPC Port. I repeat for UDP aswell..

Outbound Rules: Inbound Rules > New Rule > Port Option > TPC with the specified Port 7777 > All types of connections selected > And FInally i Named this Terraria TPC Port. I repeat for UDP aswell..

2 My Router.. I have a Arris Router.. See Pic Below

So i logged on. And went into the firewall option Selected Port forward.. Pretty simple set up too.. It asked for the Name of the Port, Which i typed Terraria Host, the type of Port.. I selected Both for TCP and UDP and the range of ports Inbound and Outbound.. I set all of those to 7777 and i closed my router so it is saved and updated..

Host terraria.. IT WORKS!! after hours of play.. close terraria it doesnt work!!!!! [WTF] yup.. thats what i said... It works.. but then stops for some reason idk...

So i start using port checker to have an idea of when and when a port is open or close in this case the 7777 port. As i checked.. there are times the port opens and it closes right after closing terraria.. or restarting my laptop.. With that said Ive tried to single out the problem wether it be in my router or firewall by trying to add more rules and such but to no avail.. I cant have a level of control when a Port is Open or not..

Please Help?
Please... Thanks

 

[r4v1n6]

When setting up port forwarding you are configuring the router to forward traffic on a certain port (7777) to a specific address (192.168.0.nnn) on your local network, which your computer happen to have.
But when you restart your computer that address may change (which cause the port forward to fail). To get around that you need to either configure your computer to use a static ip, or configure your router´s DHCP server to always assign the same address to your computer. The latter is probably better.

Log in to your router, then go to the DHCP Server page. There should be a list of addresses that are in use (assigned to various devices on your network). By this list there should be an option to reserve an address permanently to a specific device. Do that for your computer, and your troubles should be solved!

 

[Nyquist]

AAlright In my WAN section. the DCHP part shows my IP Address, My Subnet MAsk and Gateway. what do i do from here?

There is also a static section thats not enabled by default. A little help?

 

[Nyquist]

Erm.. I tried setting it up
Switched to static mode and not dynamic
But panicked when the net shut off while the router was updating. So I Canceled it

 

[r4v1n6]

AAlright In my WAN section. the DCHP part shows my IP Address, My Subnet MAsk and Gateway. what do i do from here?

There is also a static section thats not enabled by default. A little help?

Sounds like you are in the wrong section. The WAN section is for the part of the router that is facing the Internet. Don't mess with anything there.
You want to go to the LAN section, the side of the router that is facing the local network. Since you are connecting wirelessly, maybe the DHCP Server list is located in the Wireless section.

BTW what model number does your Arris router have? I have tried looking it up but havent found the exact same model yet.

 

[Nyquist]

Sounds like you are in the wrong section. The WAN section is for the part of the router that is facing the Internet. Don't mess with anything there.
You want to go to the LAN section, the side of the router that is facing the local network. Since you are connecting wirelessly, maybe the DHCP Server list is located in the Wireless section.

BTW what model number does your Arris router have? I have tried looking it up but havent found the exact same model yet.

ARRIS TG862 is the one im using. sorry for the late reply

 

[r4v1n6]

NP Ok I looked for the manual but could only find a users guide that only covered installation and such, but nothing about configuring firewall etc.
I did however find some related information on a support forum:
https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/port-forwarding-xfinity-wireless-gateway

It's not identical to your router, but maybe it's similar enough? Under Connected Devices > Devices there's the list I'm talking about. Below the list there's a button ADD DEVICE WITH RESERVED IP. If you have something like it in your router, use it to reserve an IP Address for your computer. Then go through the port forwarding settings again and make sure that the address the rule points to is the same as the reserved address.