Howto forward a port
Because FREESCO is doing NAT (Network Address Translation) it is required to forward a port on the outside of the firewall to a server+port inside the firewall to allow access to that server from the internet. Many games also require certain ports to be forwarded to the client PC behind the firewall in order to participate in online gaming.
Things to know about port forwarding
- A certain port can only be forwarded to one internal server or client inside the firewall.
- port forwarding cannot be tested from behind the firewall, only when a connection is made from the internet the rule will apply and the connection is made.
There are several ways to forward a port, but by far the easiest way is to use FREESCO's built in web control panel. Make sure this control panel is enabled in secure mode (s), never in world wide (y) mode.
Step 1: login to the web panel
Open you favorite browser and type http://your.freesco.ip:82 in the URL address bar. Where your.freesco.ip is the internal IP address of your FREESCO machine on the same subnet your client PC is on. In the examples below I've used 192.168.0.200 and 192.168.0.33 (for FREESCO 03x). The port number 82 can be changed in your FREESCO setup, so make sure to use the same port number as you've configured during setup for the web control panel.
Click the LOGIN link and a username/password dialog should show. Login with username 'admin' and the password you gave during setup for this account. The admin account is not a regular FREESCO user account, nor can you login with 'root' here. The security of the web control panel is handled by a .htpasswd file in the /wwa/cgi directory. More on that later.
Step 2: locate port forward menu
After you've logged in you should see a screen similar to this:
Locate the Port forwarding menu in the main menu on the left (you may have to scroll down a bit). Click the ADD link to open the port forward form. Now it depends on your version of FREESCO what you'll get.
Step 3: main port forward form for FREESCO 027
| Item | Comments |
|---|---|
| Type | Type of port, there are two flavours, UDP or TCP. |
| UDP is used a lot for online gaming, TCP is usually | |
| to make a client/server connection. | |
| Port | The port number depends on the type of game or service |
| f.i. port 80 is usually reserved for a web server. | |
| ADDR | This must be the internal IP address of the client PC or |
| server you want to forward the port too. | |
| Port | This is the port number for the internal client PC or |
| server. |
Unlike the 03x form (see below) you only need to type 'u' or 't' (without the quotes) in the form for the port type. There's also no method to input a port range. A 3rd party add-on package exists though that does offer this feature. The Port forwarding menu offers a few other commands:
| Command | Comments |
|---|---|
| ADD | Use this command to ADD a port forward, see screen shot |
| DEL | Use this command to delete a port forward |
| LIST | Use this command to list the port forwards |
| CLEAR | Use this command to clear the port forward list |
The CLEAR command will remove all port forwards, but the change isn't permanent:
Port forwarding table has been cleared
This is a temporary change,
system will return to its original state after reboot.
Step 3: main port forward form for FREESCO 03x
The FREESCO 03x port forward form offers a lot more nice features than the 027 one:
| Item | Comments |
|---|---|
| Type | Type of port, there are two flavours, UDP or TCP. |
| UDP is used a lot for online gaming, TCP is usually | |
| to make a client/server connection. | |
| Port | The port number depends on the type of game or service |
| f.i. port 80 is usually reserved for a web server. | |
| If you want to forward a whole range of port, type the start | |
| number of the port range here. This is only available for FREESCO 03x | |
| ADDR | This must be the internal IP address of the client PC or |
| server you want to forward the port too. | |
| Port | This is the port number for the internal client PC or |
| server. If you want to forward a whole range of ports, then type | |
| the end number of the port range here preceeded with a minus sign. |
The Port forwarding menu offers a few other commands:
| Command | Comments |
|---|---|
| List | Use this command to list the port forwards |
| Add | Use this command to Add a port forward, see screen shot |
| Delete | Use this command to delete a port forward |
| RST | Use this command to restart the port forward |
| OFF | Use this command to disable port forwards |
