guide for port forwarding on westell a90 9100EM15
driftertx
Enthusiast - Level 1

I posted this on youtube on how to get port forwarding to work properly for statically assigned hosts that you have behind a westell a90 9100EM15. I spent 3 hours trying to figure out how to get it working (and I'm a network engineer!). The westell has one of the most non-user friendly interfaces I've ever used. Anyways, this is a brief description of what it goes over.

Problem:

1) manually make firewall port forwarding with ip addresses does not properly activate port forwarding for whatever reason (appears to be a bug) on westell routers.

2) westell routers will work with DHCP assigned hosts however those settings are lost after a reboot

Solution:

1) you must assign a name on the 'my network' screen to your statically assigned host (make sure the host is online and can reach the internet so the westell knows it is online and it should be in the list of 'my network' should say that it was statically assigned.  You assign a name to the host by clicking the little computer icon that brings up a more detailed view that lets you 'rename' the host.

2) Name the host something you will remember

3) Goto the firewall port forwarding menu and at the bottom of the firewall rules make a 'new entry'

4) use '<hostname>' as your 'local host' then the desired port to forward

5) activate rules

Youtube URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smTKjGzazfI

The above survives a reboot and will be saved on the westell. The video goes over in detail how to port forward and what the screens look like. Hope this helps someone who runs into this problem I ran into!

mike

Re: guide for port forwarding on westell a90 9100EM15
dabomb411
Newbie

I have a question about prot forwarding. I need to forward multiple ports to one device. Example.

Device Diskstation - 192.168.1.220 port 5000

            Diskstation - 192.168.1.220 port 4000

when I type in my ip address i need to me able to type in ( lets say its 72.145.147.145) then the port (5000) and it brings up the management interface

and then when i type in 72.145.147.145:4000 it will bring up my photostation.

also need the rdp forwarded

and other ports forwarded as well.. 

just got this yesterday.. any help would be appreciated.

thanks

Chad  

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Re: guide for port forwarding on westell a90 9100EM15
viafax999
Community Leader
Community Leader

@driftertx wrote:

I posted this on youtube on how to get port forwarding to work properly for statically assigned hosts that you have behind a westell a90 9100EM15. I spent 3 hours trying to figure out how to get it working (and I'm a network engineer!). The westell has one of the most non-user friendly interfaces I've ever used. Anyways, this is a brief description of what it goes over.


I agree it's not very user friendly and forwarding Any to the port isn't very intiuitive howver if you select one of the canned rules like ftp or http and just give it a destination ip address then you can see how it sets it up.

1) manually make firewall port forwarding with ip addresses does not properly activate port forwarding for whatever reason (appears to be a bug) on westell routers.

Works with no issues for me

On the port forwarding rule type in the IP address e.g. 192.168.1.11 or the name of the server at athat address e.g. MYSERVER

Don't check either of the specify boxes, public ip address or network ip address

select add protocol

select user defined

type in an application name e'g. myhttp

select new server ports action +

select protocol TCP

leave source at ANY

select destination single and enter port 80

say ok

rule will appear in port forwarding as 192.168.1.11 myhttp TCPAny -> 80

so long as you have a web server listening on port 80 at the device on ip address 192.168.1.11 it will work fine

2) westell routers will work with DHCP assigned hosts however those settings are lost after a reboot

It is easier to define the destinations for port forwared devices as static but it will work with dhcp.  When you save the rule it will show the name as unresolved but after a few minutes will work it out.

If you reboot the listening device and it comes back up on a different ip address it will still work it out, may take a little while.

1) you must assign a name on the 'my network' screen to your statically assigned host (make sure the host is online and can reach the internet so the westell knows it is online and it should be in the list of 'my network' should say that it was statically assigned. You assign a name to the host by clicking the little computer icon that brings up a more detailed view that lets you 'rename' the host.

Not necessary

2) Name the host something you will remember

see 1, not necessaru unless you really want to give evrything names.

3) Goto the firewall port forwarding menu and at the bottom of the firewall rules make a 'new entry'

Yes do this

4) use '<hostname>' as your 'local host' then the desired port to forward

If you want to and have assigned a name else just use the ip address

5) activate rules

Yes, make sure it is activated.

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Re: guide for port forwarding on westell a90 9100EM15
viafax999
Community Leader
Community Leader

@dabomb411 wrote:

I have a question about prot forwarding. I need to forward multiple ports to one device. Example.

Device Diskstation - 192.168.1.220 port 5000

            Diskstation - 192.168.1.220 port 4000

when I type in my ip address i need to me able to type in ( lets say its 72.145.147.145) then the port (5000) and it brings up the management interface

and then when i type in 72.145.147.145:4000 it will bring up my photostation.

also need the rdp forwarded

and other ports forwarded as well.. 

just got this yesterday.. any help would be appreciated.

thanks

Chad  


Login to the router at 192.168.1.1

Select firewall settings

say yes

select port forwarding

go to bottom of list and select new entry +

key in the IP address of the destination

select Protocols add

select user defined

type in a name for your application

select protocols

Select new server ports+

Select the protocol type eg TCP

leave source port at Any and select destination port single

enter 4000

say ok
Repeat the last 5 lines this time usaing port 5000

say ok

leave forward to port as same as incoming port

leave schedule as always

say ok

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Re: guide for port forwarding on westell a90 9100EM15
golfmad
Enthusiast - Level 1

Driftertx, I don't know whether you're still out thre but I wanted to thank you for this post you submitted a couple of years ago. I have spent half a day today trying to get this to work and just came across your post.

I had several port forwarding rules already set up pointing to a couple of different internal servers and had used IP addresses in the rules. All was working fine. Today I tried to set up a new rule for another server and the data simply would not get forwarded. All looked OK in the rules and the server was up and running and waiting.

Like all the servers behind this router it has its address set statically but for some reason the listing in My Network shows it as DHCP. I cannot seeo to change that but by using the name of the machine instead of its IP address in the port forwarding rule it has magically started to work.

Thanks again for posting this advice.

What a nightmare of a router.