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I would like to do port forwarding, so that I can access my home server from the Internet.

The layout looks as the attached image. I have a public ip and when ever a request for certain ports comes from outside I want to redirected it to the server I have connected to one of the routers.

Before I just have two routers The Motorola SBG 800 and the TP-LINK TL-WR841N. And it worked perfect, ssh, http, vnc, …

Now I have added an 8port DSL router (TP-LINK TL-R860) and used the same logic to redirect the request. But it didn’t work.

It sometimes works like when I reset the routers or reboot etc… but not consistently.

What could be the issue? I am more on the software engineering side than networking. Any comment will be appreciated.

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  • Okay, that makes...four nested NATs? The most I've seen so far was three.
    – grawity_u1686
    Commented Apr 27, 2015 at 15:49
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    the SBG 800 is actually a motorola Surfborad modem. Keep that and one router. If you need more ports get a SWITCH, not another router.
    – Tyson
    Commented Apr 27, 2015 at 17:03

2 Answers 2

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Get rid of the routers.

From your question, it seems that all the TP-Link routers are used pretty much only to provide additional ports – to act as Ethernet switches – but you don't really have any need for their IP routing functions. If that's the case, replace them with basic switches.

Or at least make sure the various high-level functions (DHCP, NAT, port-forwarding, etc.) only run on the outermost router, the Motorola one. Turn off DHCP, make sure the routers themselves have addresses in the same subnet, and connect everything to LAN ports.

That way you'll have a single flat network, with only one layer of IP port-forwarding.

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  • I did disabled dhcp from the 8port router and change the ip pool and subnet mask to make it the same as the SBG 800 router. it is still not working.
    – user736659
    Commented Apr 27, 2015 at 23:30
  • @user736659: That's only part of what I wrote. You also need to avoid its NAT function – if it has a "WAN" port, reconnect the cable to LAN. Also, port forwarding should be done on the outermost router – TL-R860 according to your drawing (or even the Moto if it can do that).
    – grawity_u1686
    Commented Apr 28, 2015 at 4:46
  • I disabled DHCP from all routers except the outer most, stop using the WAN port from all routers, assign the same IP pool to all my devices in the house, and my server works perfect now from public IP. Thank you all
    – user736659
    Commented May 11, 2015 at 0:29
  • if some device in the network reboot, it takes quite long time for the router to assign an IP address for it. Is this something related to the performance of the DHCP service providing router? I am using the Motorola SBG 900 I believe it is quite old.
    – user736659
    Commented Jun 12, 2015 at 20:50
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Run your three TP-Link routers in "BRIDGE" mode if you can't replace them with switches. This will give you a single NAT domain, and you will only need port forwarding on the edge router (The Motorola)

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  • but the TL-R860, is not wireless
    – user736659
    Commented May 9, 2015 at 18:15

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