0

I hope this is the right place to post...

I have spent a number of weeks researching this and cannot seem to find an answer, and would appreciate some advice on how to do, and potentially some suggestions of suitable routers (the smaller the better, if I can use one of the tiny ones aimed at creating mobile wireless hotspots with just a WAN port that would be great?).

Basically I want a number of wireless devices to connect to a router, and the router port forward wach address in the subnet to a port on the router's WAN IP, i.e. 192.168.0.xxx:80 to 192.168.1.1:10xxx

And then the wireless router's WAN port be connected to the ethernet of the PC so that the single PC can communicate with each of the devices using a single IP address and varying port numbers.

I would like to setup the port forwarding in advance of connecting the devices. The reasons for this is so that only a single port is accessible on each of the devices, and that only a single IP address is used to talk to each of the devices.

Is it possible to do? Would someone be able to give me a rough overview how to achieve this? And finally, any suggestions upon suitable small routers? (the smaller the better - I only need the WAN port). For example TP-Link's TL-WR802N looks like a good candidate though I would like to customise the login page of the router so that the user cannot see its a TL-WR802N, if you get what I mean.

I am happy to flash OpenWRT or something if needs be but as I have been out of the networking game for a while, suggestions upon modern hardware choices would be much appreciated.

Many thanks in advance :-)

Improve this question
9
  • What you describe does not make sense from a network point of view. Please edit your question and do a better job of explaining what you attempting to do.
    – Ramhound
    Jun 13, 2017 at 16:48
  • Sorry, your asking me to describe something better in words that I don't know how to explain better. I want port forwarding and two different networks. I.e. PC>ethernet connection>router = lan1 - PC can only see the IP address of the router. Router>wireless>several devices = Lan2 Router forwards just one port from each wireless connected device so that the PC can comminicate with each of them by connecting to the relevant port of the routers IP address... Hopefully that is a little clearer?
    – Rendeverance
    Jun 13, 2017 at 17:02
  • I think the OP wants to be able to run different services on each of the LAN clients but use the WAN device to be able to communicate with the LAN devices using a single IP but reliant on the port number specified... E.g. being able to RDP into LAN-PC-1 on port 3389 and then RDP into LAN-PC-2 on port 3390 etc. etc.? If this is right then it's just standard port forwarding? Or have we missed something. A diagram of intentions would be nice :)
    – Kinnectus
    Jun 13, 2017 at 17:03
  • Thank you Kinnectus - yes, essentially that is what I want to do, I dont want the pc user to be able to access the subnet other than by communicating through the forwarded ports. I have managed to successfully do this with a PC but its overkill, and people can see each of the devices. I am doing this for a bunch of IoT devices so I can send each commands / receive data, but I want it to just be a case of software communicating with one IP address. I will try and draw a schematic for you soon
    – Rendeverance
    Jun 13, 2017 at 17:11
  • Its not great but hopefully demonstrates what I want to achieve. I need to hide the hardware from the user for simplification as much as possible. ibb.co/fb1Mhk
    – Rendeverance
    Jun 13, 2017 at 17:24

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

This is standard NAT port forwarding. Any home gateway router or wireless router can do this. I'm sure the TP-Link TL-WR802N can do this.

Beware that since the TL-WR802N doesn't have separate Ethernet WAN and LAN ports, you'll probably want all of your IoT devices to be wireless. If you need any of the protected IoT devices to be connected to Ethernet, you'll want to pick a router with separate WAN and LAN ports.

You shouldn't have to customize the login screen of the router because from the WAN side, you shouldn't ever be able to see the login screen of the router. Don't enable administration via WAN.

Improve this answer
1
  • Thank you Spiff - thats very useful - I did not think about the ethernet port when in WAN mode making the login invisible - but of course - that is great! The IoT devices are all wireless so brill. Thanks - Just wanted to check that it was possible before wasting time and money, but most importantly time buying a number of routers and testing etc. Thanks again.
    – Rendeverance
    Jun 16, 2017 at 8:33

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .