Router - need more ports for forwarding!

[Andrew_Culture]

At work we use port forwarding to access network cameras that we have dotted about the place. This has worked just fine for years but now we've bought an additional bunch of cameras and our router has run out of ports!

Am I going about things the wrong way? The router is a residential type combined ADSL Modem / router. Should we be using a separate firewall and modem?

Is there a better way to make a bunch of network cameras accessible from the web?

 

[Markymark]

I have a 16 port hub and the router just plugs into at with its own IP address and all other computers point to and it works fine. It is all wired though, not sure about makign everything wireless.

 

[Flossyrockstar]

At work we use port forwarding to access network cameras that we have dotted about the place. This has worked just fine for years but now we've bought an additional bunch of cameras and our router has run out of ports!

Am I going about things the wrong way? The router is a residential type combined ADSL Modem / router. Should we be using a separate firewall and modem?

Is there a better way to make a bunch of network cameras accessible from the web?

When you say ports I presume you are talking about RJ45's in which case just whack another hub into the router and plug the additional cameras into it.
If you are talking about software ports each ip address has 65,000 UDP ports and 65,000 TCP ports. So you shouldnt really run out.

I dont know how your system is configured but I use a static ip addres then put 80 in front of the last two digits of the ip address. IE if you have an IP camera with address 192.168.1.99 it,s port viewable from the web would be: IP address of router followed by :8099

 

[Andrew_Culture]

I have a 16 port hub and the router just plugs into at with its own IP address and all other computers point to and it works fine. It is all wired though, not sure about makign everything wireless.

The router sits nicely on the network and all is happy, we're fine for physical ports, it's the virtual ports for port forwarding that we're lacking

 

[Andrew_Culture]

When you say ports I presume you are talking about RJ45's in which case just whack another hub into the router and plug the additional cameras into it.
If you are talking about software ports each ip address has 65,000 UDP ports and 65,000 TCP ports. So you shouldnt really run out.

Physical ports are not in short supply, we have *thinks* about ten switches through out the network.

I get that each IP has a theoretical 65,000 ports, but if you're restricted to just a handful by your router is there a way around it?

I mean this kinda thing:

 

[Flossyrockstar]

Physical ports are not in short supply, we have *thinks* about ten switches through out the network.

I get that each IP has a theoretical 65,000 ports, but if you're restricted to just a handful by your router is there a way around it?

I mean this kinda thing:

View attachment 18960

Yeah just go into the router under PORT RANGE FORWARDING and add the additional ports you need on the ip addresses of the additional cameras. See below.

 

[Andrew_Culture]

Yeah just go into the router under PORT RANGE FORWARDING and add the additional ports you need on the ip addresses of the additional cameras. See below.

The problem is that the screenshot I posted is our actual router, and there are no more spaces left on the table

 

[Flossyrockstar]

The problem is that the screenshot I posted is our actual router, and there are no more spaces left on the table

You need to go to the previous tab" port range forwarding" and enter all your cameras and ports into there.

In your image you are on the single port forwarding tab, it,s the next one along you need.

 

[Flossyrockstar]

Did you get it sorted Andrew?

 

[Andrew_Culture]

Did you get it sorted Andrew?

I must confess I haven't had time to look today, but you're right about there being blank spaces on the other 'pages'

So my next step will be to see if single port forwarding and / or port range triggering will provide a similar facility to port range forwarding.

 

[Recycle]

If you haven't done anything yet, backup your config before you do changes.

 

[Recycle]

You don't need to use port range forwarding because your webcams are using a single port per device for both TCP and UDP.
In your current config though you are using up two entries per device. So for example you have
Application Ext Port Int Port Protocol IP Address
cam02 81 81 TCP 192.168.1.201
cam_02 81 81 UDP 192.168.1.201

These two entries can be consolidated into a single entry by doing the following change:
Application Ext Port Int Port Protocol IP Address
cam02 81 81 Both 192.168.1.201

You can then re-use the entry for cam_02 for another camera.

But first backup your config (an option in the Administrator tab).

 

[Flossyrockstar]

I must confess I haven't had time to look today, but you're right about there being blank spaces on the other 'pages'

So my next step will be to see if single port forwarding and / or port range triggering will provide a similar facility to port range forwarding.

If you look at the image I posted above, that's the port forwarding page of our router at work, so you could copy that. Job done.