Still having trouble hosting (read guides)

The key here is port forwarding. To host a game, you need to have TCP ports 6112 and 6000 FORWARDED to your local PC. It is not enough to simply have them open.

-HM

I'm not sure about the difference between open and forward really, but the router config does say route forwarding so I think it's the right thing. The screen basically looks like this:

Service Name Sins
Service Type TCP/UPD
Starting Port ******(1~65534)
Ending Port *******(1~65534)
Server IP Address *******

and I'm unsure how to fill out the ***** parts. I can do starting port 6000 fine but I can't used 6112 for ending because it's already being forwarded for WoW. (0r am I supposed to do 2 different additions one for port 6000 and then another separate one for 6112? (though that is already being used)). Lastly the server IP address should be the computers not the router, right?

Thanks for your help Hollow Man and my apologies for not really knowing much about this. Let me know if you ever need help with 18th century British Literature though

I will have to let The Monk help (not that I'm volunteering him, heh) with configuring specific routers, but I can do my best to try to explain this.

If you have a router set up at your place, then it means that all the network traffic coming in from the Internet is only sending data to ONE ip address, and your router is doing the work in figuring out which machine in your place the information needs to get to.

For some programs (i.e. hosting a Sins game) certain information needs to go to a specific location on the destination PC. This is called a port. For this to happen, the router needs to know which PC on your LAN to send this stuff to. This is what the forwarding is.

What's most likely happening now is that network traffic necessary for hosting Sins a Sins game is coming to your router, but then it has no idea where to go from there. Your PC? Roommate #1's PC? #2's PC? It doesn't know, so it dies in the router.

The forwarding rule explicitly tells your router that TCP packet with a destination of port 6000 or 6112 needs to go to YOUR PC.

My personal failure comes from not understanding why other pieces of network traffic, such as regular WWW traffic from surfing, doesn't need to be forwarded. Here, no forwarding has to be done: you can have multiple people at your place surfing the web, and the router knows where to send the web traffic, all without port forwarding.

-HM

Thanks that helps some and makes it clear I need to use my PC's IP to forward to. Unfortunately, I still need to figuire out a few other things:

1) I still need to figure out if I should use 6000 as the start and 6112 as the end port or use to separate entries with 6000 as the start and end and 6112 as a start and end.

2) What do I do about port 6112 already being used and the router telling me is unavailable (I have tried changing the sins default port to 6111 through the seeings config. Should that fix it?)

3) Is disabling UPnP going to a problem for WoW and vent, as I don't want to mess up my roomate.

4) Do I have a multiple NAT problem? I can't really tell if my cable modem is a router. The LAN port/Internet port is a 192.168.x thing. Is that what the_Monk was talking about? The explanation in the troubleshooting guide of how to fix that was, unfortunately, a bit over my head.

Pfft, I volunteer him all the time   

TCP 6000 and TCP 6112 are the only two ports you need. You do not need to forward all the ports in between.

I believe that you can use the Sins settings file to change the default hosting port to something other than 6112 (which is the default). Someone who has fiddled around with this more than me should be able to confirm that this will work.

I can't speak about UPnP, since I actually use a Linux PC to do my routing for me.

And again, someone else can help out with the cable modem. For preliminaries, if you don't have documentation for it, I'd probably do a search on the web on its model number to see if you can find any information about its capabilities.

-HM

lokigr,

1. put two entries under port-forwarding eg. TCP start 6000 end 6000 forwarded >> your IP. Do the same for TCP 6112

2. If 6112 is already being used you can change the port SINS uses by editing that in the user.setting file (sorry I can't tell you the exact path to that file I'm not on my gaming PC right now, check the Technical FAQ for it's location)

3. UPnP is usually being used for such things as Xbox's etc.

4. You could have a multiple NAT problem, but I wouldn't worry about that yet. Get your ports forwarded properly first, then if it still doesn't work we'll cross that bridge then.

I am available to talk you through the steps via my TS Server, just not untill later tonight.

thanks,

the Monk

Why thank you Anny, that's why I haven't had time to play SINS in a week.   

Mission accomplished!   

By the way, in case anyone technically inclined wants to know, my belief on why as a client you don't have to have forwarding done is this:

As a client joining a game, you are initiating contact with the server/host. Thus, data transfer is initiated by you, and information is written to the router that explains exactly where the returned packet from the game server should be sent. So when the game server writes a packet back to your LAN, it goes through your router, the router does a lookup, finds the return information based on the original packet you sent out, and knows to sends the packet to your PC (on not some other PC on your LAN).

If you are running a server, however, people are initiating contact with you, thus, the router doesn't know where to send the packets that have been initiated by an outside user. Thus, the router needs the forwarding information that Monk talks about in his guide.

-HM

Hollow Man,

You are correct that "clients" don't expressly need to forward ports to join, however if NAT-filtering gets in the way (some routers allow you to configure it see this thread https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/302422/page/3 and my post REPLY #63 for an example of a router that allows NAT-filtering to be controlled) and if your router doesn't allow you to "relax" it's NAT-filtering independently, then in many cases the same sort of result can be achieved by port-forwarding. Which is why I recommend both clients and hosts to follow the steps in my guide (at least until version 1.1 :))


Below are examples of the types of problems (non-relaxed) NAT-filtering can cause for SINS...

/quoting myself from my sticky in the Technical forum (reply #31)

Example of mis-configured CLIENT:

client sending TCP 34123 (random high port) --> host rejects on TCP 6112 (because traffic did not originate on client TCP 6112)

- client needs to forward/allow access out on correct port number by relaxing his/her NAT (read my guide on NAT and you'll know what you need to do, if you need help doing it or understand it better I'll be glad to help)


Example of mis-configured HOST:

client sending TCP 6112 --> host accepts on TCP 6112 sends back to client on TCP 32226 (random high port)

client now rejects incoming TCP 32226 from host

- this scenario happened because the HOST doesn't have his/her NAT relaxed enough and although he/she has the ports forwarded for "incoming" traffic, their router/firewall NAT's the "outgoing" packets thereby ruining the "connection"


Example of monk's hosting :

client sending TCP 6112 --> Monk accepts on TCP 6112 and sends back to client on TCP 6112

- in the above example all communications work as planned and everyone has an enjoyable game!

/end quoting myself



....some days I feel like I'm living in the matrix, one day I'll look at my wife and kids and see 0's and 1's hehe   

the Monk

question, what if I don't know the password to get into the router?

The default passwords should always be 'admin', if it was changed to something else then, well..

Monk-Dude,

That's why I said up there that he might want to ask someone else about configuring specific routers. I don't know by any stretch all of those things on the market, and what they all do. It's enough for me to try to get my head around what's going on technologically.

-HM