Would I need to port forward twice?

[BeatTheFreak]

This question won't make sense unless you read all of this.

 

My home setup is a bit on the complicated side. I have a main router then I have two access points to get coverage everywhere in the house. I then got another router for free and put it as a separate private LAN network inside the main LAN network. If you don't follow let me explain further, my main router is called "Router A", my access points are called "Access 1 & 2". Router A is connected directly to modem, Access 1 & 2 are connected to Router A. Then I have Router B, this is connected to Router A and acts as its own network. If you look on open networks you see Router A and Router B as two different networks. They share the same external IP, but are separate internally. Now my question, would I need to port forward both Router A and B if I have a server on B? Or just router A? Or just router B?

 

Please only comment if you have experience with this kind of setup, Thank you!

[jameshumphries47]

This question won't make sense unless you read all of this.

 

My home setup is a bit on the complicated side. I have a main router then I have two access points to get coverage everywhere in the house. I then got another router for free and put it as a separate private LAN network inside the main LAN network. If you don't follow let me explain further, my main router is called "Router A", my access points are called "Access 1 & 2". Router A is connected directly to modem, Access 1 & 2 are connected to Router A. Then I have Router B, this is connected to Router A and acts as its own network. If you look on open networks you see Router A and Router B as two different networks. They share the same external IP, but are separate internally. Now my question, would I need to port forward both Router A and B if I have a server on B? Or just router A? Or just router B?

 

Please only comment if you have experience with this kind of setup, Thank you!

i would assume just B, but why dont you plug your server directly into the main router instead of the slave router, as it will be faster. why do you need a seperate internal network?

[tt2468]

You would need to add a rule to any firewalls in the path of the data. Basically, port forward any router in the way.

[toxicnos]

You would have to port forward on both. Though you can create a DMZ on router A to router B to use the firewall on router 2 as your servers firewall. If you don't want to do that or want to just use one firewall, disable the firewall on router B so that you only need to port forward on router A your server will still be protected by Router A's firewall and you wont have to port forward twice.

[Wombo]

This question won't make sense unless you read all of this.

 

My home setup is a bit on the complicated side. I have a main router then I have two access points to get coverage everywhere in the house. I then got another router for free and put it as a separate private LAN network inside the main LAN network. If you don't follow let me explain further, my main router is called "Router A", my access points are called "Access 1 & 2". Router A is connected directly to modem, Access 1 & 2 are connected to Router A. Then I have Router B, this is connected to Router A and acts as its own network. If you look on open networks you see Router A and Router B as two different networks. They share the same external IP, but are separate internally. Now my question, would I need to port forward both Router A and B if I have a server on B? Or just router A? Or just router B?

 

Please only comment if you have experience with this kind of setup, Thank you!

Are you performing NAT for your internal network on router B? If you are not, then you should only need 1 port forward.

 

If only Router A is performing NAT, the only port forward you will need is on Router A, given Router A knows how to reach Router B's local subnet. You would only need to translate your external address to the address of your local server running behind Router B.

 

If both Router A and Router B are performing NAT (there really shouldn't be a need for this) then yes you would need to port forward on both of them. This in itself can cause a lot of issues with certain types of traffic so I hope this is not what you have to do.

 

You will of-course still need to set firewall rules accordingly on any devices in the path.

[BeatTheFreak]

Are you performing NAT for your internal network on router B? If you are not, then you should only need 1 port forward.

 

If only Router A is performing NAT, the only port forward you will need is on Router A, given Router A knows how to reach Router B's local subnet. You would only need to translate your external address to the address of your local server running behind Router B.

 

If both Router A and Router B are performing NAT (there really shouldn't be a need for this) then yes you would need to port forward on both of them. This in itself can cause a lot of issues with certain types of traffic so I hope this is not what you have to do.

 

You will of-course still need to set firewall rules accordingly on any devices in the path.

 

I think I have NAT for both. Router A has 10.0.1.1 and Router B has 192.168.1.1. Does this mean I have NAT on both of them? If I do have and I disable it, will the entire network all have 10.0.1.1 address?

[Wombo]

I think I have NAT for both. Router A has 10.0.1.1 and Router B has 192.168.1.1. Does this mean I have NAT on both of them? If I do have and I disable it, will the entire network all have 10.0.1.1 address?

That doesn't necessarily mean you are performing NAT on both Routers. It is DHCP that hands out addresses to individual hosts, the addresses you have given are common addresses used for gateways. So no if you had NAT disabled on router B you would not have any issues with IP addressing. If you are using any kind of SoHo routers it is most likely they are performing NAT. To be safe, just try placing the port forward on both of them, see what happens. It is hard for me to say for certain if you are doing NAT or not  so for now, I guess it is safer to assume that both devices are performing NAT for their local subnets.