Vodafone, NAT, Port forwarding, throttled ports.

VipX1

I can see that this subject has been flogged to death but there are no solutions other than changing networks. Guess which ISP I'm stuck with, Vodafone. Server:Eircom Mobile-Client:Vodafone I have a server/client set up that I have built for a customer and he supplied the SIM card for the mobile client, a Vodafone SIM. It runs an application that calls the server for various reasons but occasionally the server will need to call the client. I found a router that would allow me use a 3G network SIM and allow me open ports on the NAT firewall so I could masquerade the LAN i.p. as the WAN i.p. over a particular port. Which port doesn't really matter as long as the port is not already in use. I had it configured but the one thing I could not do was call the client back from the server. To proof I wasn't doing something wrong I used my own O2 SIM in the client side router and I was able to start the transmission from the server side. The only change in the client side router settings was the APN and other ISP/ppp information. So I have proofed to myself that Vodafone are blocking the ports on their hs.vodafone.ie service. I have not any other experience of using 3G networks for this sort of thing and I am not aware of any other options Vodafone provide to get around the problem they create. I am reluctant to ask my customer to change the SIM to O2 because I can't make the Vodafone SIM work correctly. It just sounds bad even though it is not my fault.. e.g. VNC (telnet) port 5900 and 5901 (O2) open.internet = fully functional (Vodafone) hs.vodafone.ie = Closed I'm to try hijacking port 8080 for my service tomorrow as was suggested to me today by someone.

Dardania

Hi,

Your post is very difficult to read & understand - you should try using paragraphs to get your point across clearly...it took me a few goes to figure out what you're describing...

Is there anyway you can check what external IP your router gets with the vodafone SIM? Reason being they may be giving you a private IP (10.x.x.x) instead of a public IP and routing you out onto the internet through their own gateway.

fischer

The Vodafone Ireland internet APN's are firewalled - you will not be able to initiate a connection from the internet to the ip you get, regardless of the settings on the 3G router.

O2 don't firewall their internet APN's so it sounds like they are your only option.

Neither operator encourage people to use off-the-shelf SIM's to host apps and, while it will work with o2, they won't guarentee not to firewall particular ports at a later date. Both providers offer business services to do what you are trying to do but they can be quite expensive. Either a private APN or a fractional APN sounds like the 'official' way to do what you want.

Finally, bear in mind that traffic 'to' your IP address is deducted from your monthly allowance. So if you place an o2 SIM on the internet and leave it persistently connected, it will be regularly port-scanned etc - this could get expensive if you are also eating away at the monthly bundle.

Hope this helps - I work in this area so feel free to PM me if you need more info.

Fischer.

Galway K9

What about meteor? are they friewalled?