PS5 port forwarding and VPN rules

[AndrewJacob]

Hi everyone,

I am trying to set up port forwarding on my PS5 for smoother and faster online gameplay. Activision sent me a list of ports to forward, but I don't want to trust their instructions.
I have a Mesh system with 2 AX86U using the latest merlin firmware, and my internet connection is fiber 1.5gbit up and 1 gbit down. The PS5 is connected via LAN to one of the AX86U. I also have Express VPN that can be set up at the router level...
Is there a best-practice way to port forward the PS5 while minimizing the risk of getting hacked, DDOS, etc.? Can I be combining port forwarding with some VPN setting? Does the Merlin firmware offer anything above and beyond the regular firmware that could help?

Thanks in advance,

Andrew

 

[ColinTaylor]

Trying to manually forward ports for games consoles is a fool's errand. Enable UPnP on the router and let the games/consoles open and close the ports themselves. Forwarding ports won't make your games smoother or faster.

Port forwarding cannot (other than in very specific circumstances) be used over a VPN client.

 

[RMerlin]

Also, make sure whoever wrote these instructions can tell the difference between opening a port, and forwarding a port. A lot of incorrect guides will tell you to "Forward port 443", when what they really mean is "Ensure that port 443 is open in outbound direction".

Easiest way to tell if they don't know what they are talking about is if they list ports such as 80 (web), 443 (HTTPS) or 53 (DNS) in their list of ports. All of these should never be forwarded, you just need to make sure your firewall doesn't prevent outgoing connections to these ports.

 

[AndrewJacob]

Thank you @ColinTaylor and @RMerlin !
To provide clarity, although it may not change the solution...
Activision support is "making me" open ports through either UpnP or manual forwarding, because they're troubleshooting an issue where sometimes my guns don't load correctly in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 when playing online. I've explained to them that I have no performance issues playing online with any other PS5 games (I get 910mbit download and 70 mbit upload when testing the connection on the console). They're still insisting I do this as part of the troubleshooting.

My understanding is that neither of the 2 options is particularly safe from a cybersecurity standpoint, but manual port forwarding might be better than UPnP? Either way, their latest e-mail suggested doing it manually.

The instructions they gave me state:
"Please give me a hand trying again Port forwarding. Before doing portforwarding you must disable UPnP and enable portforwarding, it is not possible to do both at the same time. Correct ports:

• TCP: 3478-3480
• UDP: 3074, 3478-3479

For more information: https://support.activision.com/articles/ports-used-for-call-of-duty-games
If the issue persists please provide us a photo of the ports opened. Please let me know if you have any questions about this, I'll be here."

How do you suggest I do this considering I'm on the latest Merlin software? Sorry for my ignorance but I've never forwarded ports before.

​

Thanks in advance,

Andrew

 

[ColinTaylor]

<sigh> Go into your PS5 game as normal. Then log into the router's GUI from a PC and go to System Log - Port Forwarding. If you're using UPnP the active ports will be shown under UPNP, NAT-PMP and PCP forwards. Ports forwarded manually (at WAN - Virtual Server / Port Forwarding) will be shown under Virtual Servers.