port forwarding on mac with belkin router?

Question

I'm trying to set up port forwarding on my mac so I can do iOS game center programming. I have a Belkin router. Apple's instructions are here. But after several hours of using Apple's instructions and portforwarding.com's instructions, I'm coming up empty. My problem may be at the static IP step -- after I set it on my mac, the mac is no longer in the router's list of DHCP clients.

Any suggestions how I might resolve this?

Answer 1

Port forwarding is used so that connections coming to you from the outside, from the internet, can find your computer on the expected ports. To do this, you need to tell the router what IP you are at and then forward the desired ports to that IP. This is fundamentally incompatible with using DHCP. The "D" in DHCP is "Dynamic", meaning IP addresses in the local address are assigned as needed. You don't want to use DHCP in this setup. Assign your local machine an IP and forward the needed ports there. Once you do this, you're not using DHCP and you won't show up in the list of DHCP clients because you won't be a DHCP client. Unless you have a need for it, it's probably easiest to turn off DHCP and use only assigned IP addresses so you don't confuse yourself.

Answer 2

OP, the first reply is 100% correct.

Suggestions for doing this on your platform....

You need to assign yourself a static IP, but you need to keep in mind that when doing this, you will still need the benefits of DHCP when you are not at home/in the development environment with the Belkin router mentioned.

I would suggest taking advantage of the "Location" settings so When your home, you will retain the static IP you give yourself, and when your away, you dont have to remove the static IP / replace it. This can be edited in the System Prefs > Network > First drop down box.

It would also behoove you to do some reading at portforward.com. They're bound to have a write up for your model router, but the steps and principles are the same no matter what the equipment.

Im assuming that your routers interface is accessible by typing http://192.168.1.1 in your web browser (it will be cohesive with your default gateways address).

Answer 3

It turned out what I had to do was buy a new router. Apparently my Belkin was simply too old to handle the large amount of port forwarding required.

With the new router, it was no problem to set it up.