R1 - Opening a port doesnt work

[Od1n]

I must open TCP port 44158 for a device XYZ in my network. This is a make or break situation, if i cannot get this port to open i will have to remove the R1

As you can guess im not able to open this port so far. Here is what i have done but the port is still closed.

 

1) R1 is connected to a Fritzbox via DHCP. The Fritzbox has the option ticked to allow the R1 to open its own ports! R1 is also set to exposed IPv4 and IPv6 host in the Fritzbox which fully deactivates the Fritzbox firewall for the R1. The R1 has a fixed address within the Firtzbox DHCP too.

2) Assign device XYZ a reserved DCHP IP in the range of 2-49 in the R1 settings. I went with 192.168.88.40.

3) Create a corresponding port forwarding rule in the R1 settings with inbound/outbound port 44158 TCP assigned to device XYZ on 192.168.88.40.

4) Restart R1 to verify all settings have been saved and device XYZ runs only on IP 192.168.88.40!

 

When testing the port it is still closed though! So i also did:

5) Turn off UPnP and restart router, once again it doesnt work.

 

So i checked my Fritzbox and it has an option to show which ports the R1 currently requests to be open. It shows 0, the R1 seems to fail to tell the Fritzbox that it wants this port to be opened.

I would like to mention that since the release of DumaOS 3.0 i have never been able to open ports. On DumaOS 2.0 and below it worked. My network setup hasnt changed since i bought the R1 as an early bird. I do not see what i am doing wrong with my 5 steps so NetDuma Support please tell me what settings i oversaw. Otherwise i must remove the R1. Firmware is 207.

[Netduma Fraser]

So just to double check, the exact same process you did on 2.0 and it worked perfectly, no other changes? What is the particular service/application that needs to be port forwarded? Is your R1 and device connected to the R1 getting an IPv6 address? If it is then you shouldn't need port forwarding, it should be able to communicate over that port.

[Od1n]

Thanks for replying on a Sunday Fraser, much appreciated!

Yes with previous firmware version (DumaOS 2.0 and below) i never had issues doing port forwarding, even UPnP worked then. This goes all the way back to the original launch R1 firmware and my network setup hasnt changed since then.

The device i need to port forward is a so called Helium crypto miner named Sensecap M1. It communicates with the blockchain on TCP port 44158.

36 minutes ago, Netduma Fraser said:

Is your R1 and device connected to the R1 getting an IPv6 address? If it is then you shouldn't need port forwarding, it should be able to communicate over that port.

I will get you this information as soon as im back home, stupid traffic jams

[Netduma Fraser]

Hmm odd, is it with every 3.0 version? Is the miner working or is it having trouble?

[Od1n]

1) The R1 is using an IPv4 address to the Fritzbox (192.168.178.22). I activated both DHCP IPv4 and DHCP IPv6 on the Fritzbox but to me it looks like the Netduma uses the IPv4 DHCP. Worth to mention: In my NetDuma WAN settings i have turned off IPv6 so this would only make sense. This was a recommendation by you around 2 months ago where my R1 Internet would randomly die. Details here though not that relevant for this problem i think:

2) The miner uses an IPv4 address in the R1 network (192.168.88.201) and has no IPv6 assigned to it

And yes this port forwarding issue think it has been with every DumaOS 3.0 version i think, but i upgraded from 2.0 to 3.0 very very late as i wasnt a beta tester for it. I probably updated to 3.0 around a year after it was out. So i cannot say how i would have worked with early DumaOS 3.0 firmware versions.

 

The miner is currently doing some syncing to the blockchain so i cannot check its port situation. Though since i havent done anything else its port will still be closed. The problem with a closed 44158 port is that all traffic will be relayed to a different miner nearby and you lose a significant amount of mining income (which the nearby miner then gets). So you want to avoid being relayed = port closed at all costs .

[Netduma Fraser]

Gotcha, I think that was probably resolved by the reserved IPs and DHCP change so go ahead and make sure IPv6 in enabled for LAN and WAN, then also make a Traffic Controller rule for the device to allow ALL traffic and see if it helps. You could always as a test put it in the DMZ as well though I wouldn't recommend it for long term use - it's unlikely you'll see the port open that way but it would work.

[Od1n]

All right thanks Fraser i will activate IPv6 again!

How do i do the following two in the R1 interface?

1 hour ago, Netduma Fraser said:

then also make a Traffic Controller rule for the device to allow ALL traffic and see if it helps. You could always as a test put it in the DMZ as well

 

[Netduma Fraser]

For Traffic Controller it's quite easy, add a rule, select the device and follow the prompts, there aren't too many options to choose from. For DMZ, just put the miner IP address in it - its on the first page in LAN Settings

[Od1n]

All right i did both of that, the miner interface still says relayed though (aka the port is closed).

I can restart the R1 once more to see if it makes a difference, but i doubt it.

 

What else could i try? It starts to sound like i may have to remove the R1, no?

[Netduma Fraser]

Is that with the DMZ as well? If so that is a bit strange, are you able to put the fritz in a modem/bridge mode at all?

[Od1n]

Yes with the DMZ too, port is closed.

The Fritzbox is set as a DHCP Server, i dont know if it has a bridge mode though. Very Very old Fritzbox models had a modem mode (it turns into a modem then) and a PPPoE mode for other devices to establish an Internet connection though the Fritzbox.

[Netduma Fraser]

What's your specific fritzbox model, I'll take a look

[Od1n]

Wow Fraser i really appreciate that! 😮

The specific model is "FRITZ!Box 7530".

[Netduma Liam]

Looks as though the Fritz doesn't have a modem/bridge mode unfortunately.

Apologies if I've missed something here, but you mention earlier on that the R1 is in the DMZ/Exposed host config of the Fritz. However later on you mention that the R1 has an IP seemingly assigned by the Fritz, which we wouldn't expect.

That would suggest that the R1 isn't in the DMZ and that could be the reason the Miner can't get the port it needs. 

[Od1n]

I thought more about it and i remembered how this whole situation started.

During the DumaOS 2.0 and prior firmware versions i was using PPPoE from the R1 to the Fritzbox. I think the Fritzbox removed this feature around the launch of the DumaOS 3.0 via a firmware update though. At least since then i cannot find this feature in the Fritzbox interface anymore. From this time onwards i had to switch from PPPoE to DHCP. Since then all my ports are closed.

 

1 hour ago, Netduma Liam said:

but you mention earlier on that the R1 is in the DMZ/Exposed host config of the Fritz. However later on you mention that the R1 has an IP seemingly assigned by the Fritz, which we wouldn't expect. That would suggest that the R1 isn't in the DMZ and that could be the reason the Miner can't get the port it needs. 

I dont think this is the case, here is how it looks like. Default IP of the Fritzbox is 192.168.178.1
 

[Netduma Fraser]

Thanks for the model! So to be clear, the R1 is handling PPPoE now or PPPoE is no longer required?

So I had a look at the model, it does have its own firewall that doesn't appear toggled off. However, I did find port sharing and their description of it seems like it has to be used if a device needs to be connectable from the internet and looks like it relaxes the firewall a little. Could you do port sharing for the R1 and see if the miner works then?

 

[Od1n]

Hey Fraser,

how would i do port sharing with the R1? This is the first time i hear about that terminology :).

Right now the R1 uses DHCP with the Fritzbox, PPPoE doesnt work anymore since quite a while (around the time i updated from DumaOS 2.0 to DumaOS 3.0). By the way the port forwarding is just one issue that doesnt work since then anymore. WiFi Call from the phone or not being able to open the NAT are other problems that came along with this change. The NAT is for example always moderate/symmetric. Just mentioning this in case its helpful to isolate the issue.

[Netduma Liam]

6 hours ago, Od1n said:

Hey Fraser,

how would i do port sharing with the R1? This is the first time i hear about that terminology :).

Right now the R1 uses DHCP with the Fritzbox, PPPoE doesnt work anymore since quite a while (around the time i updated from DumaOS 2.0 to DumaOS 3.0). By the way the port forwarding is just one issue that doesnt work since then anymore. WiFi Call from the phone or not being able to open the NAT are other problems that came along with this change. The NAT is for example always moderate/symmetric. Just mentioning this in case its helpful to isolate the issue.

I've had a little look around, perhaps this article will help? 

https://en.avm.de/service/knowledge-base/dok/FRITZ-Box-7490/893_Setting-up-static-port-sharing/

[Od1n]

Given how much help the NetDuma Support provided me i want to provide the solution to this problem.

It took some time to figure this out but my ISP switched my connection from IPv4 to Dual-Stack-Lite without me being aware of that. DS-Lite does not offer port forwarding and other stuff, which resulted in my R1 not being able to open these ports. Long story short, i must now pay a few more bucks per months to have an IPv4 again and now the R1 can successfully open ports again!

[Netduma Fraser]

Ahh well done on figuring it out and thanks a lot for providing the solution! Glad it's all working again now!