Port forwarding limitations

[mwpowelllde]

Got a problem with port forwarding, not sure if it can be easily addressed, given RT-AC66U seems fallen out of support.

Trying to arrange some port forwarding in potentially 2+ scenarios. I have one scenario i.e. to one MAC+IP address, set of ports being forward.

Now I am finding I have a second (maybe three or four) cases that need to be configured, same set of ports being forward, but to different MAC+IP address combinations.

Literally, the box to which I am forwarding has 4 NICs installed, and I'd like to support forward to any of the NICs, if possible.

However, the firmware is responding it cannot, responding, "The entry has been in the list" [OK].

So seems like I may be 'stuck' plugged into one specific NIC?

Any possibilities this can be extended to support it? Or is that a limitation of the router itself, not the firmware?

Running the latest firmware 380.70, supporting the RT-AC66U unit.

Thanks...

 

[ColinTaylor]

You cannot forward a port to more than one destination IP. That is not a valid configuration (regardless of the router being used).

The only exception would be if you were specifying different source IP addresses for each port forwarding rule.

 

[mwpowelllde]

Understood, although chagrined. So pretty much fixed to the one NIC. Thanks, and thank you, BTW, for the PROMPT reponse...

 

[ColinTaylor]

Can you explain more about what you're trying to do?

Perhaps you can bond your four network interfaces into a single logical interface, giving you one IP address.

 

[mwpowelllde]

The target box has four NICs, and I want to forward my ports to any of those NICs. Not sure I can configure my DHCP accordingly for a single IP, that might work, but I don't know, i.e. four different MAC to a single IP, but that probably is nonsensicle as well. Absent that, would need to configure ports forwarding to different IP, if possible.

 

[ColinTaylor]

To put it another way, why do you have four NICs? What are you using them for?

If you want to bond (sometimes called teaming) all four NICs you would do that in the operating system's network configuration. It's nothing to do with DHCP.

 

[mwpowelllde]

1. Why does it matter? 2. It's nonya. Nothing personal, but you do not need to know. Suffice to say, the application has some ports that get forwarded accordingly. That's all anyone needs to know in this forum.

 

[mwpowelllde]

Re: the second premise... Operating system? We're talking about router firmware port forward, correct? Again, why does that involve any target box OS?

Again, re: OP, the firmware does not support multiple PF mappings, fine. Fair enough. Absent that, just curious if I can make alternate arrangements re: DHCP configurations that also satisfy the forwarding.

 

[ColinTaylor]

1. Why does it matter? 2. It's nonya. Nothing personal, but you do not need to know. Suffice to say, the application has some ports that get forwarded accordingly. That's all anyone needs to know in this forum.

That's fair enough. I was only trying to understand your setup so that I might be able to offer alternate solutions.

Re: the second premise... Operating system? We're talking about router firmware port forward, correct? Again, why does that involve any target box OS?

Because if you were to bond four physical interfaces into one virtual interface (and they were connected to a switch that also supported link aggregation) the new virtual interface would have one IP address. The load would then be balanced across all four physical interfaces.

Anyway, this is all academic now as this doesn't sound like it's appropriate for your situation.

 

[mwpowelllde]

Appreciate the response, yes, it is not a virtual box but a physical one.