ASUS AC86U Firmware merlin 386.11 - NAT Loopback not working please help !

[yoshimitsu]

Hello folks !

I am trying to make my NAT Loopback works on my router ASUS AC86U.
The main object is to be able to access, within my network, to my NAS using it's DDNS hostname.

The problem is that I see no GUI to switch on this feature. There is no documentation on this subject and I don't know if it really exists in this model.

Some threads say that it is activated by design and you need to disable the HW acceleration.

But ... there is no GUI to disable this ! (it's driving me insane)

Can you please help me with that ?

config : ASUS AC86U with the latest merlin firmware 386.11

Thanks in advance guys !

 

[ColinTaylor]

There is no NAT loopback GUI option because it's always enabled. All you need to do is create a port forwarding rule on the router (assuming your router has a public IP address).

 

[yoshimitsu]

What do you mean by adding a port forwarding ?

Of course I did one in order to make open vpn work (cf screen).
I also created a DDNS on my synology.

But still doesn't work ... Did I miss something ?

 

[ColinTaylor]

To use NAT loopback you need to be forwarding the ports you want to use from the router to the NAS (WAN - Virtual Server / Port Forwarding), that's the definition of NAT loopback.

If you're only using the DDNS name to access your NAS then you don't need to use NAT loopback. You could create a DNS entry on the router that points your DDNS name to the local IP address of the NAS. Then assuming that your client is using the router for DNS all DNS lookups for the DDNS name will return the local IP address of the NAS. Your client would then go directly to the NAS rather than having to go via the router's loopback.

 

[yoshimitsu]

Thank you Colin for your help I aprechiate it

As mentioned before, I did a port forwarding (see the attached pic) from my router to my nas.
Still, it is not working when I call my NAS on my browser https://{nasDDNS}.synology.me in my local network.

Do you see a misconfiguration in the Asus router ?

If I want to configure the second proposition, can you please guide me on the Asus merlin web interface and what to configure ? (as you can see I am new to these networking configs ^^).

Thanks again !

 

[ColinTaylor]

As mentioned before, I did a port forwarding (see the attached pic) from my router to my nas.
Still, it is not working when I call my NAS on my browser https://{nasDDNS}.synology.me in my local network.

You are only forwarding the OpenVPN port. If you want to access the HTTPS port on the NAS you need to forward port 443. I discourage you from doing that as you would also be exposing that port to everyone on the internet.

If I want to configure the second proposition, can you please guide me on the Asus merlin web interface and what to configure ? (as you can see I am new to these networking configs ^^).

The second method can be achieved a couple of different ways, but it can't be done through the GUI. You need to enable SSH access to the router (Administration - System) so you can create a custom config file.

For me the most straight forward way would be to modify the router's hosts file. SSH into the router and create a custom config file called /jffs/configs/hosts.add. It should look like this:

192.168.1.99 nasDDNS.synology.me

Adjust the IP address and name as appropriate.

P.S. There is no reason to hide your LAN IP addresses. It just makes things more difficult.

 

[yoshimitsu]

Hello Collin !

Thank you it worked ! To complete your answer, after adding the file, you have to enable this: