Dear ANYONE,

I need help port forwarding so that I can release my sever to the public. I believe that my ports have been opened correctly, but maybe there is some sort of networking device, that my router connects to, that is blocking traffic to my router. This may be the case since I live in an apartment and the network has been provided by the owners. I have scoured the internet in hopes of finding a similar situation and a solution to my problems, but I have not. The potential second network device that I mentioned came to my mind after using the port checker (canyouseeme.org). This site displayed an ip that I was not familiar with. If anyone knows a way to get around this without renting an online server, please give me the details. Also I have already added the rules to the firewall so I doubt that those settings would cause a malfunction. I can't see any flaws in what I have done so far, but regardless my server is not enabling other players to join so I need help.

Thanks,

H.G.H.

1. Make sure that your Rust GAME port (the one people connect to) is on the UDP protocol (not TCP).

2. When testing your ports you should temporarily disable firewalls on both your router and the OS that your server is running on. No firewalls. Once people can successfully connect, only then should you re-enable the firewalls and mess around with the firewall rules.

3. You say "the network has been provided by the owners". You can run a traceroute to try and see any extra networking that may be in place, but normally they would just provide an internet service to the building which shouldn't interfere with what you're doing.

4. "canyouseeme.org - This site displayed an ip that I was not familiar with..." Please explain more about what exactly you did. Normally you enter an IP address and port to check, and it says yes or no. Displaying an "IP address that you are not familiar with" makes no sense. Anyway, I just checked my own Rust port (which is working fine) on that site, but it was not detected, so I would not rely on that.

Merged post

Oh, and...

5. Before you start blaming the port forwarding, test your Rust server to make sure it's running properly by firing up your game and connecting directly to your server via the local IP eg.

F1 > client.connect 192.168.1.xx

...because if the server isn't running then you're on a wild goose chase with the port forwarding :)

@JimDeadlock This site displayed an ip that I was not familiar with -> this makes sense, since site does automatically determine IP of yours.
On the other hand, your IP (@HoneyGlazedHam) probably is dynamic, since ISPs mostly provide such addresses for free, and you can get the static one for additional fee.
Most port-checkers work incorrectly with NAT, so they will not display "port is opened" in that case even if it's actually opened, since they actually can't reach your device.
To check if you have dynamic IP -> go to some site that displays it (2ip.ru for example), remember what it shows, restart your router and check IP again, it will probably change.
The best option for hosting servers on dynamic IP addresses is using "no-ip" services (google that, I won't advertize them here), they allow you to tie your IP to some domain that you will choose. AND most modern routers allow to automatically update IP in the service, when it changes.

I made the assumption that he knows what his own external IP address is (dynamic or not)... if that's not the case then maybe he's simply telling people the wrong IP and that's why they can't connect.

Thanks for the response @JimDeadlock.

[1] I chose the option for UDP and TCP. Is this alright? (Below is the format of the netgear port forwarding UI.)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Service Type:                                                                                                                          [TCP/UDP]
                                                                                                                                            
External Port Range:
(Please specify ports and port ranges split by commas, example: 30, 50 - 60, 65500 - 65510)       [28015-28016]

Internal Port Range:
(Please specify ports and port ranges split by commas, example: 30, 50 - 60, 65500 - 65510)       [28015-28016]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[2] I added rules to enable traffic on the ports 28015-28016 on my OS. I am not familiar with disabling the firewall on the router (I didn't know of this secondary firewall and I will look into it).
[3] Here's a little more information. So basically my apartment complex has their own network that I can connect to without plugging my router in. This is how I know (Or atleast think) that there is another networking device that has its own port settings. That same network that I mentioned has ethernet running to my room and that is were I plugged in my netgear router.
[4] The site auto fills the IP. Sorry for being unclear, I don't know much about networking. By saying that I was "unfamiliar with the IP" I meant that when typing "ipconfig/all" within the command prompt, I could not find an IP that matched the one that I saw on canyouseeme. I thought that this was another indication that another router was present.
[5] I also failed to mention this, but I have used that command before and have been able to successfully connect to the server. I just have not been able to make the server available to other people. Hopefully this will help narrow down my issue.

Thanks,

H.G.H.

Thanks for responding @2CHEVSKII.

I reserved an IP within my LAN router settings. Is this essentially making the IP static? If so what exactly is the additional fee that you mentioned? With this change, the server is still unavailable to other users.

Thanks,

H.G.H.

@HoneyGlazedHam Your point [3] is the most telling and I think your suspicions may be correct. If your landlord controls the router that splits the incoming internet connection between you and your neighbours (it looks that way) then you probably don't have the access to that router necessary to set up the port forwarding properly. Plugging your own router in would be one router on top of another.

Please plug directly into your ethernet (without router) and paste here the output of:

tracert google.com

Since you are planning on opening your server to the public, you are not concerned with IP privacy so go ahead and post the lot.