BS 1.01A hosting port issue NOT resolved!!!!!

[=SCoRPioN=]

The problem is YOUR ROUTER and NOT the GAME!

Leave ED alone, they've done a great job.

 

FIX your ROUTER or connect DIRECTLY!

[c0ff]

;742025']The problem is YOUR ROUTER and NOT the GAME!

Leave ED alone

 

Dear SCoRPioN,

1) there's such a thing as customer support (even if by EULA we don't owe anything to anyone, nobody revoked our goodwill)

2) we do not live in a perfect world. Our product, even if many consider it good, let's be honest, is not perfect. So the routers are allowed to be not perfect as well. And it is natural to adopt our real product to the real world which happens to contain strange routers.

3) such things improve my personal network coding skills ;) (as in writing practical code)

[graywo1fg]

Dear Scorpion. i'm not pissed at ED or cOff i think they have done a wonderful job as well! and i'm not the only one having this issue. Sixmarbles who is a networking GOD has tried 3 different routers and still no dice. i am a strong supporter of ED the only thing with this thread is that i'm trying to help resolve the issue. what have you done to help with this issue?

 

 

 

Dear Coff. i know that i have mapped the port correctly in the "Virtual Server" as 10308 why would the NAT remap it? but this really honestly seems to be Black shark only. so the next patch will hopefully take care of it...... i know how to configure a router i have hosted tons of other games no problem, no port remapping on other games. example ArmA 2 and so on. and with Lockon using the same exact port and "Virtual Server" profile to the same exact server, it works perfectly.

Edited August 27, 2009 by graywo1fg

[ZaltysZ]

Dear Coff. i know that i have mapped the port correctly in the "Virtual Server" as 10308 why would the NAT remap it?

 

Look at my post above. You simply have asymmetrical NAT or your NAT does port translation when both your server and gaming rig is running. Just follow the steps I have written, and post the results.

[graywo1fg]

the server is the only thing on the router. my gamer rig is not located at that address anymore. i moved :P but i remote admin it. and when it was there.... i would only have one "Virtual Server" profile using 10308 pointing to the server. same as it is still.

[SixMarbles]

Look at my post above. You simply have asymmetrical NAT or your NAT does port translation when both your server and gaming rig is running. Just follow the steps I have written, and post the results.

 

 

I should point out that Graywo1f's gaming rig is in a different city than his server box. Furthermore, I have administrated his server's router directly and his NAT is configured specifically not to translate ports I.E. there is a separate entry for LAN (internal) and WAN (external) port, and he has them both configured to 10308.

[SixMarbles]

c0ff, first of all thank you for helping us with this issue. However I don't think we've clearly explained the cause of the problem.

 

We have both set up 'virtual server' or 'port forwarding/triggering' profiles correctly such that the internal and external ports coincide, but the issue persists. Please note that this issue seems to be specific to hosting DCS servers (I used to travel for a living, and successfully used my home PC as a gaming and FTP server which I accessed remotely from hotels and such using WOL. In addition, there were instances where I had to specifically remap external ports on my routers so that I could connect to my VNC server from within a comcast facility as they do not allow any traffic besides DNS and browser on port 80 or 8080).

 

I shall try to make this short and sweet, and not include extraneous information... I'm not very good at that BTW

 

When hosting a DCS server, I forward port 10308 (internal) to 10308 (external) using my host box's local IP as the target. I then launch the server. With this done, all seems in place.

Unfortunately, my port is reported incorrectly as a 60k random port on the master server. So, when a remote client attempts to connect on that port, it fails.

 

Of note: thanks to your master server update, this issue is no longer a problem.

 

If, however, a remote client specifies to connect on port 10308, he is able to join the session successfully, albeit with one dire side effect: the session appears paused, his ping is reported as zero on the client list, and after 120 seconds he is disconnected from the session.

 

After examining this issue with a packet analyzer, I have determined that the client's TCP packets ARE getting through successfully. This is why he can select an aircraft, participate in text chat, view an updated version of the player list, etc. until his 120 second timeout occurs.

However, he cannot receive UDP packets from the server. This is why he cannot see other aircraft and the session appears paused.

 

Here's where the game gets interesting: not all clients have this issue. Some clients are able to connect and fly without incident after specifying 10308 while others cannot receive UDP traffic from the server.

 

 

Ooookay, hopefully that clarifies the issue a bit. Now the master server shows the correct port, but the UDP traffic (only) is still coming through on the random (60-64k) port. Thanks again for helping out, I hope this makes this easier.

 

P.S. [sCoRPioN], thank you for your valuable insight.

Edited August 27, 2009 by SixMarbles

[ZaltysZ]

These settings can be used for port translation, but I am not talking about them. I am talking about automatic translation which happens when multiple hosts uses the same port, when sending packets through NAT.

 

So what is present setup? Router + server only? Any other hosts connected to router? How many IPs does server have?

[SixMarbles]

His setup is router + server only. There are no other hosts, and the server has one NIC with one IP.

[ZaltysZ]

Does this router has "Gaming Mode" or UPnP support? Disable them, if this is possible.

[SixMarbles]

These options are not available in his router.

[SixMarbles]

Once again, I would like to stress that his server will not send UDP packets to the client on the correct port. Both TCP and UDP are specified in the port forwarding profile.

[graywo1fg]

Gaming Mode and UPNP support now disabled. i found them and disabled them i remembered where they were on the router. testing now.

[Ramstein]

Does this router has "Gaming Mode" or UPnP support? Disable them, if this is possible.

 

 

I am curious, why disable 'gaming mode' ?

 

actually, might as well ask this too :

why also disable 'UPnP Support' ?

 

my Router is D-Link DI-624 Rev C.

Edited August 27, 2009 by Ramstein

[graywo1fg]

So far it appears to be staying on 10308.... we'll see how long it stays like this. hopefully forever :) but after all i've been through i'll believe it after its been on 10308 for a few days :P

[ZaltysZ]

I am curious, why disable 'gaming mode' ?

 

actually, might as well ask this too :

why also disable 'UPnP Support' ?

 

my Router is D-Link DI-624 Rev C.

 

Both of them are related to automatic port forwarding and may interfere with manual port forwarding.

 

UPnP is supposed to do noting unless asked by software, which requires forwarded ports. Well, of course it is true only if UPnP implementation is not broken. :)

 

What is "gaming mode" is hard to guess, because it is not technical phrase. I think it switches router from Symmetrical NAT to Full Cone NAT. The difference is in how incoming packets are handled. In symmetrical NAT only incoming packets from hosts, to which some packets have been already sent, are allowed. In other words, external host can communicate with internal host only if internal host initiates communication with that particular external host. In Full Cone NAT once communication is initiated, incoming packets from any host is allowed. When we have Symmetrical NAT and do manual port forwarding for port X, then port X will kinda work as in Full Cone NAT. With "gaming mode" everything works in Full Cone NAT. By definition that is all, if you need more details, examine the implementation (run some tests and capture packets behind and in front of router).

Edited August 28, 2009 by ZaltysZ

[Ramstein]

I have had Gaming Mode and UPnP enabled for all these years and had no problems with akl the other flight sims an and games I have played online since 1997. Maybe gaming mode hasn't been on the Routers since then, but UPnP has. Tha't why I asked why disable those. I have investigated what those do and have a pretty good understanding of those. But, I am very interested to hear others opinions to see if any other players experiences will help my problems in Black Shark.

 

Like I said before, Black Shark is the only flight sim with disconnects. I fly with other pilots who also host and at least one of those pilots can host with no disconnects. I think my Router connection has some problem with Black Shark. It's weird, but I can't find any other reason.

But, I also tried another router different brand and still had some problems.

 

I thought about Gaming mode as the router placing a different priority on packets for the communication of the packets in the game to have higher priority.

 

Since I am not using UPnP I thought leaving it on made no difference unless it was triggered on an incoming port.

 

I tried again with UPnP off and it made no difference.

 

I wonder if D-Link is just a problem brand router. Or at least the DI-624 model.

:doh:

[Ramstein]

I am thinking that since I use channel 6 wireless on my D-Link DI-624, because Turbo speed only works on channel 6. Also it looks like most the people with wireless near me use channel 6, and they all seem to get on in the evening.. maybe they have screwed channel 6 by everyone using it.. the wireless channel 6. So maybe if I sacrifice the Turbo and go to another channel it wil stop giving me problems around 6 to 8 pm in the evening.. when I fly only with others with Black Shark.

 

Turbo enable speeds up to 108 mbs where as the regular speed is only up to 58 mbs.

 

I have never seen my speeds go past 58 mbs anyways, at least that I am aware of.

[ZaltysZ]

"Gaming mode" does not have anything to do with priority. As I understand from D-Link's sparse info, it is intended to be used with gaming consoles or games whose use random ports (f.e. DirectPlay nonsense - I am happy it died :thumbup:). It is not good feature. Despite it frees user from doing complex configuration, it also has nasty side effects. One of them is degraded security due to Full Cone NAT.

 

Gaming mode allows a form of pass-through for certain Internet Games.

If you are using Xbox, Playstation2 or a PC, make sure you are using

the latest firmware and Gaming Mode is enabled. To utilize Gaming

Mode, click Enabled. If you are not using a Gaming application, it is

recommended that you Disable Gaming Mode.

 

It may look like "gaming application" includes all games, but if you look at first sentence it says "certain internet games". Confusing description for end user. It is not mode for games, it is workaround for some games.

 

I am behind NAT too. Linux one :) No problems with DCS as my router does not mess source port as yours does. It is desirable that router mapped source ports in symmetrical way as this increases compatibility. Most routers work in this way. If yours does not do that, then try to find why. It might be fault of settings or fault of router logic. If it is the later, then you are bound to run into problems with source port sensitive applications.

 

---

 

Are you playing over wireless? It can provide enough bandwidth, but latency is too high. Wire is always recommended for games.

Edited August 28, 2009 by ZaltysZ

[graywo1fg]

ZaltysZ i really hope that fixes it :) its good so far. i'll check again here in a bit...

 

But. i'm thinking since Black Shark is the only game with this issue it must have some kind of computability issue with the net code and they way routers handle it. Because for 2 years on and off i was able to host lockon on the same port no issues. hmmm

[ZaltysZ]

Trust me, DCS is not the only program which has problems with such routers. You were just lucky enough not to use any other source port sensitive application.

 

DCS is no more guilty than your router is. Vanilla version of DCS was compatible with NAT in general, however it did not take into account, that some routers could translate ports without being told to do so. In other hand, such routers (their behavior) are uncommon as (you have already noticed) they complicate things and break compatability. With next patch, hopefully, DCS will work even with such routers (or their special "gaming" modes). I wish you luck with your server.

[bumfire]

Trust me, DCS is not the only program which has problems with such routers. You were just lucky enough not to use any other source port sensitive application.

 

DCS is no more guilty than your router is. Vanilla version of DCS was compatible with NAT in general, however it did not take into account, that some routers could translate ports without being told to do so. In other hand, such routers (their behavior) are uncommon as (you have already noticed) they complicate things and break compatability. With next patch, hopefully, DCS will work even with such routers (or their special "gaming" modes). I wish you luck with your server.

 

 

Agreed, Routers are notorious for messing with FTP ports and such like.

 

I guess asking for a router that just "works" is asking too much ?

[dragony]

Come on, it's very easy to make any router work. You just need to set up port mapping of TCP and UDP protocols port 10308 to your server's internal IP address. I've checked it and it works just fine! FYI, similar mechanics used to make work any server behind NAT.

[c0ff]

Come on, it's very easy to make any router work. You just need to set up port mapping of TCP and UDP protocols port 10308 to your server's internal IP address.

No, IF your router remaps outgoing packets even if they originate from 'virtual server' port. That is:

You set up port mapping, so incoming packets on port 10308 on your router are redirected to port 10308 on your PC, BUT outgoing packets, that your PC (server) sends from port 10308 are remapped to some random outgoing port.

In this case client gets confused as it gets serverinfo packet not from 10308, but from this random port, and uses this random port to connect.

[c0ff]

But. i'm thinking since Black Shark is the only game with this issue it must have some kind of computability issue with the net code and they way routers handle it. Because for 2 years on and off i was able to host lockon on the same port no issues. hmmm

That's VERY strange, because network code in BlackShark is mostly identical to LockOn one.

LockOn didn't have server browser though. AFAIK direct connection by IP works in BlackShark as well.

The problem is with connection using server browser with servers behind some routers.