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I have two routers with two different Wi-Fi networks, the reason behind this is that I need one as a high school student to mess around on and one that my family uses for our main Wi-Fi that I'm not allowed to mess around with so I have bought my own router.

Before I got my own router we messed around with port forwarding to reach my raspberry pi outside of our network and for the life of me I could not get it to work.

The thing about our main router is under port forwarding it says "from port to port" we tried for remote desktop "from 22 to 3389" no luck then "from 22 to 22" no luck then we tried forwarding my web server to port 80 no luck.

So Thursday I got my own router and my question is if I want to port forward do I have to port forward on both? My router is connect straight to the home router via an Ethernet cable and has the same external IP address.

Also the routers we own:

  • Home (family) router: Linksys WRT45G
  • My router: Linksys E900.

So let me sum up my question again: what port should I be forwarding to for both web server (apache2 website and hosting site) and remote desktop/ssh and do I have to set it up on both routers?

2 Answers 2

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I'm assuming you had the proper IP of the computer you were trying to forward to in those port forwarding settings?

If so, you may want to talk to your provider about opening up those ports for you - some providers will block things by default unless you need them and ask for them to be opened. OR, make sure that your modem isn't also being its own router and also in need of port forwarding.

What it the external/WAN IP address of your main router? If it's 192.168.something or 10.something or 172.16-32.something then you'll need to as your provider to put your modem into bridge mode.

Once you know you can get to your outside router on a certain port, yes you will need port forwarding on both in order to reach a host that is behind both.

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  • what is bridge mode and the sad part here is i would have to convince my father to call our cable company Sep 29, 2013 at 19:28
  • Having a router helps up security and allows people to use more than one computer. Previously you would have to g purchase a separate router for this, but recently cable companies have been providing single-unit modems/routers. Bridge mode means that the modem just converts from cable to ethernet, allowing all IP traffic to pass uninhibited. It's for people who have their own routers.
    – jerm
    Sep 29, 2013 at 19:38
  • we have a modem that converts cable into ethernet and then that goes to the router that is then seperates of ethernet ports for all our computers and ethernet ports and then to my router like you said but can't i log into it or does that requrie the cable company? Sep 29, 2013 at 19:41
  • physically they will often look the same. Logically you need to see, on the router that you control, what is the WAN IP? that will tell you if your modem is also acting as a router
    – jerm
    Sep 30, 2013 at 5:13
  • 173.32.70.23. I also I'm taking some advance networking classes in high school and asked my teacher about my ISP mediacom and she said its not possible because our public ip address is just a private ip adress of a switch witch then has a public and theres no way i can get trough the switch then to our adress because i cant acess the settings of mediacoms switch Sep 30, 2013 at 19:58
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For remote desktop, it's usually just 3389 to 3389 -- the one option you didn't try.

In your situation, I would've suggested one of the routers that allows a separate "guest" network, but you've already bought it, so that's that.

When you are trying to port forward -- and assuming the family router is also the modem, what the ISPs call a "gateway" device (just to confuse things) -- you have to do it with the outside-exposed router to the inside address. You can't just do it on the inside router (yours) because the traffic will never get to it.

But from what I recall, the WRT45G is JUST a router, and there may be yet another device, the one that acts as the "modem" for your connection. Is there such a device?

Please note that when you say that your router has the same external IP address, that cannot actually be true. If you are checking via something like "whatsmyip.com", you're just seeing the external presentation of your home's connection. But with your router connected to the family router, yours has to have a "wan" address that is within the range of the LAN addresses that the family router hands out. And you're not really gaining anything by hooking up your router to the other router, except for a separate additional wireless network that isn't buying you anything at all.

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  • We have a rca or something like that modem and wouldn't it be lans the router is handing out is it possible to add a like say double adbter to the modem where the ethernet for the main router comes out and connect one to one port and one to the other? Oct 1, 2013 at 21:36

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