AC through Router

[flicman]

I'd like to host an AC game on my workstation, currently located behind a windows 2000 router. I know what ports I need to forward through to the workstation, but don't know how to get a port range to forward under NAT and Win2k.

I'm wondering if anyone here has done it, and whether someone could give me some pointers about the router setup. I've been searching through Windows White Pages articles for two days and can only find info on how to forward specific ports, not a whole range.

Your kind advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Static Universe]

Try these links:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=7764&referrerid=0

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q240429

What kind of router are you using? You may need to configure the router and not anything in Windows.

If no one else can help you, I'll run this by my brother. He sets up routers all the time.

[flicman]

My router is a Windows 2000 box that I built myself and I'm beginning to think that you can't forward a range of ports in Win2k (an opinion culled from the M$ forums this morning).

I'd really like to believe that this is not true, as security is nothing without configurability, but I'm afraid that it must be.

As I said, I know where to configure single ports to forward (and will do this when I put up my anti-win2k-as-an-Alpha-server website on my internal Red Hat machine) under Win2k, but nowhere does it talk about port ranges. I wonder if there is software available to snap-in for Win2k like there is for SSH and the like.

(and thanks for the links--they're where I originally learned about the correct ports to forward.)

[Static Universe]

Try this link. Sounds like you have to set the properties in the NAT dialogue to map the range to the IP of the machine.

http://www.comptechdoc.org/os/windows/win2k/win2kroute.html

[flicman]

That's a good page - I hadn't found it before. It's clearly written, even, which is amazing, considering how much tech crap I've been reading recently that's barely comprehensible for lack of clarity.

Unfortunately, it seems like it's not actually possible to forward a range of ports in Windows 2000 Server - at least, the dialog box they mention in the above article is the one that everyone talks about (Special Ports tab) and nowhere does it support ranges.

I read in a M$ knowledge base forum somewhere that it's actually not possible to do what I'm trying to do because they determined that it was too much of a risk to allow open ranges of ports through the NAT machine. I'd really like to believe that such a thing isn't true, though.

Thanks for all your help.

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by flicman

I read in a M$ knowledge base forum somewhere that it's actually not possible to do what I'm trying to do because they determined that it was too much of a risk to allow open ranges of ports through the NAT machine.

Surprising, since a bunch of Microsoft games need these ranges to play across a network.

[Fitz]

flicman, supposedly you can play with just a small range opened up. I tried this with someone after contacting SMAC/X tech support, and was never able to get it to work (most likely because I was trying to connect SMAX to SMAC ).

However, I think I still have the ports that need to be opened at home somewhere (or in an email). I'll see if I can dig them out for you. And if you are running SMAX 2.0, we can even try testing it with the same versions some time.

Edit: I think I posted them here as well. If they haven't been truncated. Do a search for UPD and see what comes up.

[flicman]

In the search for UPD:

No thread specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the webmaster

I'm considering just putting my Linksys Wireless Switch/Router outside my Win2K router/firewall for the time being, just to play SMACX. I'm way too excited about servers for my own good - if I'm not careful, I may find myself in an IT career for the rest of my life.

Thanks for your help.