PORT FORWARDING

[Hayguyz]

Can someone help me out with port forwarding. Im using it as a last resort to fixing a problem where me being wired into the wireless router and then running ffxiv causes the router to shut down its wifi.

Im seeing ports: 9067 and 9077 on my network monitoring software. Are those the only two I need to forward? Do ports differ per server? Im on behemoth.

[Raist]

Just to be clear, is the router killing wifi (as in anyone connected to it gets bounced), or is your laptop killing it's wireless connection (you and others still have internet access, just your system is now running over the wired instead of wireless when connected).

The reason I ask is that often times the latter is the default configuration--when you connect a wired connection to many laptops, it drops wi-fi for the (typically) faster and more responsive cabled connection.

[worldofneil]

You don't need to forward any ports. That's only needed when something is trying to access a service on your computer and with FFXIV (and most games), you're running a client connecting to their server, not the other way round so if you actually forwarded any ports to your computer, you'd just be creating potential security risks, you certainly don't need to do that to run the game.

The WiFi is likely shutting down because possibly (am I mean no offence) the router isn't very good quality and doesn't handle the packets streaming through it (I've seen this first hand with cheap access points at my work which will crash when too much traffic goes through them). The other thing it might be is that your router has non-standard WiFi settings turned on (like "Turbo mode" to boost WiFi speed or other similar name dthings, but they aren't a standard thing and is specific to certain manufacturers) or it might be some sort of WiFi protection mode where it intentionally shuts down if if it detects possible security risks (DoS filters etc).

[KisaiTenshi]

You don't need to forward any ports. That's only needed when something is trying to access a service on your computer and with FFXIV (and most games), you're running a client connecting to their server, not the other way round so if you actually forwarded any ports to your computer, you'd just be creating potential security risks, you certainly don't need to do that to run the game.

The WiFi is likely shutting down because possibly (am I mean no offence) the router isn't very good quality and doesn't handle the packets streaming through it (I've seen this first hand with cheap access points at my work which will crash when too much traffic goes through them). The other thing it might be is that your router has non-standard WiFi settings turned on (like "Turbo mode" to boost WiFi speed or other similar name dthings, but they aren't a standard thing and is specific to certain manufacturers) or it might be some sort of WiFi protection mode where it intentionally shuts down if if it detects possible security risks (DoS filters etc).

Not entirely true. All communications are two-way communications. NAT can only be used once. Some carriers (particularly mobile phones) don't give real IPv4 addresses anymore, and rely on carrier-grade NAT. This means for you that if you have a router that also does NAT, your router can't determine where the packets coming from the network are supposed to go since it basically "rewrites" the destination.

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...06/blog/77559/
UDP
55296-55551
TCP
80, 8080, 443, 55296-55551

To clarify, this is what SE says, but this isn't what's being used.


The launcher needs to reach 124.150.157.126 and 124.150.157.117 (port 443 SSL)
The login/lobby needs to reach 124.150.157.158:54994 and the game uses port 54680 and 54681 while doing this
When you click on your server (Excalibur 199.91.189.42:55006) it opens two connections to it, using ports 54906 and 54907 on your system.

What you're supposed to do is let UPnP work, or use "trigger" ports , when the game connects to a specific IP or port number, the software firewall in the router is supposed to let connections 54994-55006 pass through.

What causes peoples routers to crash is that the outbound ports are being blocked, or the inbound traffic is being overwhelmed and doesn't know where to send it. Honestly if you have a poor quality router (some brands may use the same brand for their cheap vxWorks devices and their slightly more expensive, much more hackable Linux based ones) this doesn't surprise me. The firmware may come with stock settings that recognize things like WoW and Everquest, but never anything new.

[Raist]

I've never had to forward ports for either FFXI or XIV--and I don't use PnP either. That's going back to around late 2005, with different brand name routers--Blitzz, Ativa (rebranded Belkin), and my current Netgear. May daughter facetimes on her ipod touch, while playing Elsword on her laptop, and I play XI or XIV on either my PC or my laptop. Never had issues with any of them because of my local network setup. These aren't high-end models either... I've never paid more than $40 for my routers at local retailers (not an ebay or amazon deal, I got them from brick and mortar stores). NAT has come a long way, and so long as your client is maintaining the session properly, it shouldn't be a problem. SE just puts that out there as a CYA sort of thing, as it does resolve issues with certain security models (like when stricter firewall rules are in place). The only time I've forwarded a port is for Torrent use or when I needed to RDP to my desktop from the outside--but never for XI/XIV. It's just one of those things for you to try to rule it out as a problem.

So, the port forwarding may or may not be needed--it depends on your particular situation.

[KisaiTenshi]

May daughter facetimes on her ipod touch

Facetime, Skype and various other remote access software (including google drive, dropbox, etc) actually keep their processes running and connected to a server outside your network, that's how you're able to access your cloud files, or files physically on your machine without having to leave ports open on your system. In general you shouldn't -have- to open ports if everything worked properly. Traditionally you had to open ports because the software firewall or router was changed from default "allow everything out" to "allow only what I say out" since that's also how botnets communicate. The reverse, allowing traffic in is usually a "block unless initiated from the inside", like games.

As I mentioned in another thread, the "crashing the network" thing I've been able to do with the WRT54G when it was put behind my then-ISP 's Television over IP service, the multicast traffic overwhelmed it after several minutes and then rebooted itself. I suspect something similar to be the case for those who experience this.

That said, I've been peering over at the netstat list every time I see the game stutter and the highest I've seen FFXIV at is 12% CPU, 8KB/sec recieve and 2KB/sec transmit. Without analyzing the packets themselves I can't really dig in further, though it may have something to do with congestion control. Or as pointed out the TOE/LSO may be bad on the network card or router. If you have matched gear (eg realtek+realtek, Atheros+Atheros, Broadcom+Broadcom, it may enable vendor-specific features that don't work properly) I know atheros gear does this.

[Raist]

not sure you quite got what was significant about those examples. The point is there were 3 devices, running three different applications, all using the same port space (2 always wireless, my laptop iw wireless, buit PC is wired)---and there was no need for port forwarding or UPnP to be used. And it wasn't freaking out my cheap $30 Netgear router from Wal-Mart (WGR614, v9) that I got about 2 years ago when my 3 year old Ativa (Belkin) started stalling on me.

In fact, you actually reinforced a point I made earlier. If your client is managing your session properly, there is no need for port forwarding. The exception being for security reasons or some sort of quality control, but generally with today's routers it shouldn't be needed if your software behaves properly. In the case of both XI and XIV, it seems to work without needing you to set up port controls--unless your security (or ISP's) is causing a problem, in which case you would need to punch a hole through.

[worldofneil]

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...06/blog/77559/
UDP
55296-55551
TCP
80, 8080, 443, 55296-55551

To clarify, this is what SE says, but this isn't what's being used.

That's not an official post, that's someones personal blog and it's VERY bad advice to do that they've said as they're saying to open nearly 300 ports to your computer that potentially may cause security issues if you have other services running on those ports.

FFXIV does not need any ports opened OR UPnP enabled (I know because I've connected from 2 locations, neither have UPnP or ports forwarded to the computer). If you find an official SE page saying you need to open ports so then please post a link, but I've never seen any such thing and from my own experience it isn't needed, as well as that fact the game isn't a server so nothing should be connecting to the local computers.

The FFXIV game is a client, it is creating all the connections to the SE server at which point the server can reply on those connections that the client created. Yes the router has to work out the NAT and reply to the correct internal computer, but since the connection is still open, that's easy. If your computer is unable to access SE servers on those ports that's an outgoing problem, not an incoming one. Incoming traffic needs ports to be opened, outgoing traffic needs unblocking on the router/firewall (or NAT adding) to allow it to work.