Forward the Ports ?

My son wants to host games on Warcraft 3 on battle.net & is unable to. We have a cable modem going through a Microsoft router. His computer is running Windows XP SP2. He cannot host games even with his firewall turned off. He has been told by his gaming buddies that it has something to do with the "ports being closed" and that he needs to "forward the ports". We have no idea what this means or how to do this. I have recently added new anti-spyware programs to beef up his security per major geeks suggestions. Can anyone give us any ideas?
Thanks! Shannon

 

You do that in the router. There should be a screen in its web-based interface that allows you to "map" or "forward" a port number or range of ports to the machine you wish to play the game on. You must know the local IP address of the PC-- setting is in the WinXP Local Area Connection's TCP/IP Properties. It would be helpful to make that PC's IP address "static" as opposed to letting the router dynamically assign it one-- it could change, and then the router would try to forward the game traffic to the wrong-- or no-- PC. The actual port number(s) you need to use should be in the game's documentation.

 

To TheDoug, Thanks for the info . . . it worked. Can you explain how to make that PC's IP Address "static"? Also, which firewalls can I run on that PC and still host an online game? Or do firewalls even interfere? Thanks again Chuck

 

Your router functions as a reasonably effective firewall in its own right. None of the machines on your LAN can be seen from the internet, unless you allow them to be. You could turn off the firewall on the game server PC with a reasonable degree of safety. If you are uncomfortable with that, and you are using Windows XP firewall, for example, you could go into Windows firewall, and, under the Exceptions tab, use the Add Port feature to allow traffic on the game's port number to reach the game server PC. Either way, you are still allowing a certain degree of access to that PC on that particular port.

To make the IP of your game server PC static, go to Network Connections - Local Area Connection -> Right Click on it and choose Properties. Under the General tab, highlight Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and click on Properties. Select Use the following IP address, and enter 192.168.0.x, where x equals a number higher than the number of computers you have hooked to your router, plus one. Even simpler, just make x equal to 10. For the subnet mask, enter 255.255.255.0. For Default Gateway, enter the default IP address of your router, typically 192.168.0.1. Verify this in your router's documentation, though. If different, use it as a model for the address you assign your game server PC (e.g. if router address is 192.168.1.1, make the PC's IP 192.168.1.10). Click OK to close. Go to your router's port forwarding page and enter the IP you assigned the game server PC.