Trouble with Port Forwarding...?
Working on launching a Forge server with a big mod-pack to play amongst friends. Server opens and runs just fine, and I can join and play on it locally. Only problem is that trying to connect to it via any public IP results in the "Connection timed out" error. Seems like it might be a port forwarding issue, but that process is all simple enough. I can connect to it locally with the WAN IP provided by the router interface. In the past I would have just used the server computer's local IPv4, so that's a little confusing too. I've tried port forwarding the device's local IPv4, and the WAN IP, but no dice. ISP is Google LLC, router is an ROG Asus thingamabob. Not sure if this is the right place to come to, but seems on-topic enough... Wanted to know if anyone had any similar issues or any insight. Thanks in advance!!!
3 Replies
!cgnat
We may have bad news for you :C
You may be under a CGNAT which is a method that ISP's use to conserve IPV4 IP's due to how limited they are now. What this means in plain terms is that your IP address is being shared with other people as your router goes to the ISP's router, by default this means port forwarding doesn't work.
We need to check if you are under a CGNAT and we got 2 options.
Option 1: commands
Depending on your OS, run the following command:
- Windows:
iex (Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DominicTWHV/Is-It-CGNAT/refs/heads/main/windows.ps1")
- Linux: curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DominicTWHV/Is-It-CGNAT/refs/heads/main/linux.sh | bash
-# You should never run such things without reviewing and understanding the code
Option 2: manually
Open your router's configuration interface. Somewhere, you'll see something like 'external' or 'public' IP.
If your external IP is in one of the following ranges, you're basically screwed as long as port forwards go:
- 10.0.0.0/8
- 172.16.0.0/20
- 192.168.0.0/16
- 100.64.0.0/10
- any IPv6 address/range - This shouldn't be a problem, but Minecraft's IPv6 support is still rather quirky. You're at your own, but we're happy if you share your experience.
What do I do now?
You should ask your ISP for a public and IPv4 address (but this may cost you money).
NB: your internal IP should and most probably will be in one of the first three ranges, don't mix them upTurns out, we are NOT under CGNAT... probably. There was another router upstream, which is a combination router/modem (to my knowledge.) So the solution was to just login to the interface of that root router and port forward there instead. Thanks for the help :- )