How can I connect to a friend's IP if we both have routers?

[Muftobration]

My friend and I both have Linksys Routers. Because of this, we do not connect direcly to the internet, we conect to the router and that connects to the net. Within our LANs we have different IPs for the computers on our own networks, ours are both 192.168.1.101 on our LANs, but that isnt an IP we can use to connect to eachothers computers. I have tried setting up a static IP, I have tried Port Forewarding, I have tried everything I thought would work and none of it does. Can anyone help me with this problem?

[Gulf_War_Syndrome]

The 192.168.x.x IP ranges are your private IP for use on the local network only. Your modem will have a private IP also, probably 192.168.1.1, but also a public one, for example 202.159.55.23. Go to http://www.whatismyip.com/ and it will tell you what your public IP address is.


Here is an outline of the procedure for allowing connections from the Internet to a box on your LAN. This goes for any sort of server, FTP, WWW, Teamspeak... and hopefully BF2.

1) Assign the box you will run the server a manual IP, say 192.168.1.100
2) Find out the port your server is listening on for connections. BF2 default is 14567 I think.
3) Login to your modem/router. Find "NAT Rule Entry" or "Port Forwarding" or "Services" or whatever your router calls it (I'm not sure what a linksys is like). Setup a port forward for the port found in step 2 (14567) to your server box private IP (192.168.1.100).
4) Save settings and logout of the modem. What this is doing is making any incoming traffic hitting your router at port 14567 get passed on to the box on the LAN.
5) Start up your server - Fire up BF2 and create a game. I'm not sure if you have to choose "internet game", you may succeed with starting a "local game".


Now, at the other end, the client (the person[s] trying to connect to your server) will need to know your servers' (modem/router) public IP. You have this written down now after visiting http://www.whatismyip.com/ so give it to your mate. They should then click the "Connect to IP" button, enter in your IP and the port number.... and cross fingers.


- Note: I haven't actually even attempted this with BF2 yet, like I say it is a generic process for getting public access to any server you want to run on your LAN. The important thing is getting the port forwarding setup on your router. Every modem/router is different, so it may help to check the manual for the specifics on how to do this.
- As far as I know, the "Internet Game" option just makes the server register itself with gamespy, so it appears to everyone worldwide in the server browser. This is why attempting the local game setting is preferable for your private game. You may also want to put a password on the server so that the average joe can't play on your server if s/he stumbles across it.

Hope this is detailed enough, and not too confusing.... good luck!

[« R²» HKS]

Ok once you find your outside ip of your friends pc get him to start a singleplayer game if you want to play against bots then you go to multiplayer and click join ip and put his ip in there, you will connect straight to his pc.

Also if the Linksys has a DMZ port enable it, that will open all ports so you can create a server otherwise it will not show up and you won't be able to connect to it.

[Gulf_War_Syndrome]

Yeah, setting up the DMZ (De-Militarised-Zone) will work as it is telling your router to forward ALL incoming traffic to a specified (private) IP on your LAN.
The DMZ is good in the sense that you don't need to worry about knowing/forwarding the specific port numbers, but bad in the sense that you are removing all NAT/Firewall protection your router provides for your precious gaming box.

Just think of the Blaster or Sasser worms - all they need is an the open port (on an unpatched machine) to start wreaking havock. With your routers' NAT in place, and just the required ports forwarded, you are still protected even with an unpatched Windoze, as the router will block any incoming data on all other ports.
You will also start recieving those annoying "Message From ..." popup dialog boxes, as anyone will then be able to send messages to you using the "Windows Messenging" service if you haven't disabled it.
No, this isn't not from Windows Messenger, it's the Messenger service. If you need an example of these dialogs, from the command prompt type:

msg * "You should turn off your Messenger service!"

Basically, the machine you set as your DMZ will have all the protection of a 56k dialup or non-routed DSL modem (ie. none at all!) and will be relying solely on security updates, personal firewall (Zonealarm, Windoze firewall etc) for protection.

[« R²» HKS]

Yeah, setting up the DMZ (De-Militarised-Zone) will work as it is telling your router to forward ALL incoming traffic to a specified (private) IP on your LAN.
The DMZ is good in the sense that you don't need to worry about knowing/forwarding the specific port numbers, but bad in the sense that you are removing all NAT/Firewall protection your router provides for your precious gaming box.

Just think of the Blaster or Sasser worms - all they need is an the open port (on an unpatched machine) to start wreaking havock. With your routers' NAT in place, and just the required ports forwarded, you are still protected even with an unpatched Windoze, as the router will block any incoming data on all other ports.
You will also start recieving those annoying "Message From ..." popup dialog boxes, as anyone will then be able to send messages to you using the "Windows Messenging" service if you haven't disabled it.
No, this isn't not from Windows Messenger, it's the Messenger service. If you need an example of these dialogs, from the command prompt type:

msg * "You should turn off your Messenger service!"

Basically, the machine you set as your DMZ will have all the protection of a 56k dialup or non-routed DSL modem (ie. none at all!) and will be relying solely on security updates, personal firewall (Zonealarm, Windoze firewall etc) for protection.

Pay attention to that, its 100% correct and what I left out, oops bad me I added in a different post but forgot the warning for you. Basically its the easy way out to get it working just remember to disable the dmz when you are not using the server or setup that is port forward the ports correctly that you need to play/create a server which won't open other ports necessarily. I spose I was a little lazy when I made that post but make sure you take this warning!

« R²»Capt.HKS
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