Nighthawk R7000 w/Advanced Tomato won't Port Forward except for RDP

[smitbret]

Everything is working great on my LAN at home, however I am trying to set up my media server to work outside of my LAN but I am smashing my head against a (fire)wall a this point. The issue isn't just limited to my media server or any one PC, either. I simply cannot get the router to open any ports other than 3389 for Remote Desktop. I am able to set them up in the Advanced Tomato interface just fine but attempts to connect to the media server time out.

I thought it was just the media server software that was the problem but after a few hours I decided it might be something else. I did a fresh install of the media server software on a different PC and switched the port forwarding around to the new PC. No change, still unavailable. I have tried half a dozen different port numbers and nothing ever changes.

Eventually, I ran the OpenPortCheckTool and it flags the ports as being unavailable. At this point, I installed SimplePortTester on two of the PCs and ran checks on random port numbers, all of which failed of course. I checked with my ISP:

Cable ONE reserves the right to employ network management practices (e.g., to prevent the distribution of viruses or other malicious code) as well as to block the transfer of unlawful content. As such, Cable ONE blocks ports 135, 136, 137, 138, 139 & 445. In addition, SMTP Port 25 and SSDP Port 1900 are restricted for residential customers.

Not using any of those.

At this point, I have to point this to Advanced Tomato, don't I? I can't seem to find anything around the web about this, though.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Basic question - have you setup the appropriate rules in the destination PC's firewall to allow incoming traffic from non-local networks? RDP is slightly unusual in that it's firewall rule is already setup like this by default, whereas almost none of the other services/apps are. You could test this by temporarily turning off the firewall completely and testing again.

Have you tried accessing something other than a PC, something like a network printer that has its own web interface?

 

[smitbret]

@ ColinTaylor

Thank you for the tips. I went through and checked all of these things. I did not know that about RDP.

I have tweaked and prodded to the point that I have finally gotten the ports to open..... at least I think so. I have installed the media server software on two different PCs and set up different ports for each. I have setup the router appropriately. When I run 'Simple Port Tester' and 'Port Forward Network Utilities' on both PCs, it is reporting that the ports are successfully open for both PCS. It checks out with the firewall(s) on and off). I have tried both PCs using several web based Open Port Check Tools and they all report the ports open but only if I have the Port Forwarding tool running.

And the media server still will not connect. This has to be something application focused at this point, right? I have successfully configured this software in the past and streamed media outside my home, so I know the software works but that was before I installed Advanced Tomato on the router. Both PCs were just running stock Windows Firewall (Windows 10 and Windows 7 Pro). I installed Norton Security on one of them to see if it was a resolvable firewall issue. No difference.

I am to the point that I think I just need to swap out routers.

 

[ColinTaylor]

From what you've said it sounds like the router and the PC's are working fine, so the problem looks to be with the client side.