Member Avatar for PhiberOptik

Hi guys,

I work at an internet cafe as a technician, and the own wants customers to be able to create their own Warcraft 3 games. I found the ports (6112-6119), but there are not enough forward spaces in the router (linksys) to forward every computer (not to mention i don't want to)
So my question is, is there a way of forwarding a port to EVERY computer, I tried (192.168.1.*) but that errored and I tried () which the router IP but it didn't work either! Any ideas?

Sincerely
PO

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Short answer: a consumer NAT box cannot forward the same external port to every LAN machine at once. As noted, routers expect a single internal IP per forward; wildcards like 192.168.1.* are not supported, and pointing a forward at the router itself does not publish an internal host.

Practical options and tradeoffs:

  • Enable UPnP/NAT-PMP on the router if the game supports it. That lets a client open mappings dynamically and is the simplest user-friendly fix, but it has security implications and relies on the game implementing the protocol.
  • Use port triggering. It opens incoming ports to whichever internal host recently made the outbound trigger connection. Works for occasional hosts, but only one machine can receive inbound traffic for the trigger at a time.
  • Use port translation (external-port-to-internal-port mapping) if your router supports it. You can map different public ports to the same internal game port on different machines — but remote players must connect to the correct public port (e.g., publicIP:port). This only works if the client can specify a port when joining.
  • Run a single dedicated server/relay inside the cafe (forward the range to that machine) and have customers host local lobbies through it, or use a VPN/virtual-LAN relay solution to avoid public-port complexity.
  • Upgrade the router or install firmware (only on supported models) or request additional public IPs from the ISP if you need many simultaneous public hosts.

Quick setup checklist:

  • Reserve static IPs or use DHCP reservations on the router.
  • Configure the chosen mapping method (UPnP, triggering, translation, or DMZ if you must — DMZ is risky).
  • Allow the game in host firewalls.
  • Test from outside the cafe (friend or external machine).

Contrary to , not forwarding ports will prevent external players from joining hosts behind NAT. For a public-facing, reliable solution, use UPnP/port translation or a dedicated relay host, or move to hardware with more advanced NAT features.

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Member Avatar for DimaYasny

you can't do that with a simple linksys

Member Avatar for PhiberOptik

awesome thanks for the reply

Member Avatar for OlyComputers

Just NOT forwarding ports should do the job. There will be some performance lag, but most people don't have there router ports properly forwarded at home either. Once you start forwarding that port range, you'll run into problems because it's going to want to send all the packets (for the entire network) to the ips indicated.

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