I'm encountering this strange problem which has baffled me to the ground, and which I haven't encountered even after years of doing port forwarding .. ! I am hoping somebody here can help me solve this mystery .. :)
My network configuration is as follows:
I have a DSL modem (custom made and branded by my ISP) which is receiving a DSL stream ... it has an external IP which is visible to the world, say, 11.22.33.44 ... This modem has DHCP enabled, has an internal IP for itself, which is 192.168.1.1 .. it is connected to 2 laptops via and ethernet cable .. Laptop 1 has IP 192.168.1.2, and Laptop 2 has IP 192.168.1.3 ...
On Laptop 1, two applications are running, jDownloader and Media Player Classic, which have their web interfaces on ports 8765 and 13579, respectively ... I can access both of these web interfaces from Laptop 2 by opening these addresses: 192.1681.2:8765 and 192.168.1.2:13579 ... both of their web interfaces open up, meaning the web interfaces are working fine ..
Moving on, I now want to access these web interfaces from outside my network as well, and so I've configured port forwarding in my PTCL modem to forward all traffic on ports between 8000 and 14000 (both TCP and UDP) to IP 192.168.1.2 ... I have verified that port forwarding is working by testing it using PortForward.com's port checker tool, and this website too: [URL]http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/open-ports/[/URL]
When I use the website, if I'm running the applications on Laptop 2, the website reports that the port is open .. if I then close the application, the website reports the port is closed ... This makes sense as nothing is listening on my machine in the latter case .. Also, if I disable port forwarding in my modem, again, the website reports the port is closed ... so, the website's results seem to be okay ...
Same of the above can be said when I'm used PortForward.com's port checker tool ... So again, everything okay so far ...
Now, here comes the problem !! ... Despite the above tools reporting that port forwarding is working, I am unable to open the web interfaces from outside my network ... So for example, if I tried to browse 11.22.33.44:8765 or 11.22.33.44:13579, nothing opens in my browser ... But if I accessed these web server's locally from Laptop 3, by typing in 192.168.1.2:8765 or 192.168.1.2:13579, they opened ...
So where is the problem here ?? The tools report unanimously that port forwarding is working, and yet I am unable to open the web interfaces from outside the network ..
Also note that I have disabled the firewall from my computer, and have also made sure that any option in the above programs (whose web interfaces I am trying to open) that says only local connections are to be accepted, is disabled ...
So whats the problem ... ?!! Any ideas ??