Is it safe to have open NAT?

[Foxix]

I play a lot of online games, PSU, and a ton of 360 games. I was just digging about the router options to change the wireless channels (been noticing some weird lag lately figured maybe our neighbors got a new router or something and its interfering so I changed from channel 11 to 1)

Anyway whilst mucking about in my router I noticed that my NAT filtering was set to secured and not open. I was always under the impression that for any online gaming the router NEEDS to be set to open NAT to run smoothly, this may account for my strange lag issues lately. However I was wondering just what exactly does securing this thing do anyway? Is it worth it? And are there any risks to leaving it open?

[Sord]

well, never heard of "open" NAT, static and dynamic is what I know about. Basically what NAT does is it changes whatever IP address your computer on your network has into one that can be routed out onto the internet (for example 192.168.1.1 would NEVER be routable on the internet.) When you have dynamic NAT, the address it changes to will be diffrent for each established connection. Static (which is probably open in this case) will have the same internet IP address for the same IP address on your network. Dynamic offers more security, because then no one can link any one internet IP address with the one on your network. However, if someone is always trying to reach your computer (like it was a server) it would seriously slow things down if it always had a diffrent internet IP address. Hence you use static, and everything routed to that address is then routed to your computer. Makes things a lot smoother. So if you are always hosting a game, yeah, static is good to have, it's not so much an issue if you are joining other servers though. Regardless, it's really unlikey tha a serious hacker would bother to trace your system. You're not a corporate network, you wouldn't have near as much to lose to them as a real comany. However, depending on your ISP, you may not even be allowed one I think. Or vice versa (no dynamic.)

[Foxix]

Well, oddly enough it has caused issues in the past. I remember once playing a game of halo with a friend in matchmaking, probably Sinue, and when I was host for some reason it wouldn't find any compatible matches until I gave leadership to someone else. Maybe it was just a weird glitch but I would still like to get some more input from others.

Actually to quote the details of my router (if it helps anyone to help me figure out the details):


NAT Filtering

This option determines how the router deals with inbound traffic. The Secured option provides a secured firewall to protect the PCs on LAN from attacks from the Internet, but it may cause some Internet games, point-to-point applications, or multimedia applications not to work. The Open option, on the other hand, provides a much less secured firewall, while it allows almost all Internet applications to work.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Foxix on 2007-12-26 03:16 ]</font>

[Sinue_v2]

Supposedly, you have to forward certain ports used by Xbox Live to ensure that your NAT reads open. Unfortunately for me, this never works. UP&P is off, ports forwarded on my router, pc, firewalls, AND modem - MTU is set correctly, I've upgraded my router's firmware, and I have the Xbox set to a static IP out of DHCP range (since apparently Linksys Routers will not port forward to a IP within it's DCHP range, regardless of it being static or dynamic). My DNS numbers are set to my ISP's DNS. I've even go so far as to run without a firewall and set my 360 on the Demilitarized Zone, but nothing seems to work. Even when my Xbox Dashboard reads the NAT as being wide open, as soon as I get into a game - it'll go back to being strict or moderate.

I'm sort of wondering whether or not this some ploy on Microsoft's behaf to try to get me to buy a new "Xbox Compatable Router". Sort of the same way they've removed the ability to stream media over to the Xbox using WMP or Zune if you're using Internet Connection Sharing. Windows Media Connect 2 is supposed to work, but the link they give you to that file is down permenantly. I'm convinced this is some cheap way to ensure that you buy the highly overpriced Xbox Wireless Adapter.

Anyhow, it would have been cool if you could have stuck around a bit longer last night. We raped, and I got my 30 in Team Slayer. Or that might have been before you joined... not sure, I was a little drunk. I do remember some guy named Rag Rappy joined on the other team and everytime I killed him I bitched because he wouldn't drop me a Lavis Cannon.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Sinue_v2 on 2007-12-26 09:37 ]</font>

[Rubius-sama]

The linksys routers have an option you just tick to have Open NAT. I doubt it poses any realistic threat to your security by having it set to open.

[Sinue_v2]

I use a WRT54G (not sure of the hardware version) running firmware 1.01.1. It doesn't give me an option to have an Open NAT. The closest it comes is under the security settings there's an option for Filter Internet NAT Redirection. I've tried it both selected and unselected. The router still makes up it's own mind whether or not it wants to open the NAT, without any input from me.

[Foxix]

Yeah, sorry about that man. That rag rappy guy was funny as hell, too bad I only got photon drops though http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_frown.gif

And I joined in after you got you're 30... remember we got pwned in all those 30+ matches? Anyway, this is what I use: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833150015
It's made by netgear and beats the living crap out of my old linksys router.

It's a bit on the pricey side I guess, but it's got great range, great stability, setup was pretty easy as I recall too.

[Rubius-sama]

On 2007-12-26 16:09, Sinue_v2 wrote:
I use a WRT54G (not sure of the hardware version) running firmware 1.01.1. It doesn't give me an option to have an Open NAT. The closest it comes is under the security settings there's an option for Filter Internet NAT Redirection. I've tried it both selected and unselected. The router still makes up it's own mind whether or not it wants to open the NAT, without any input from me.



I used that same option (unticked it) and it read as Open on my Xbox. I might've tweaked some other stuff too, so here's my settings.

http://abattalion.com/images/r1.jpg
http://abattalion.com/images/r2.jpg
http://abattalion.com/images/r3.jpg
http://abattalion.com/images/r4.jpg
http://abattalion.com/images/r5.jpg

[Sinue_v2]

That looks similar to my setup, except that I have my DHCP range restricted to 5 (since we'll never foreseeably have more than 5 guest computers logging into my network) and my overall network set to Static IPs - and again, the appropriate UDP and TCP ports opened for Xbox Live.

I would assume that you have your 360 either hard wired to the router or connected wirelessly via the 360 wireless adapter? I've noticed that I can get an open NAT when I plug directly into the router (when I bring the 360 into the livingroom to watch movies with guests), but for the most part I have the 360 hooked up in my computer room and it's leeching it's internet connection from my PC via ICS. As said, ICS tends to fail pretty hard in streaming media from my PC even when using an approved media sharing program like WMP 11 or Zune and this may be the crux of my problem. However, as said, I've tried everything on my PC side that I can think of and it still doesn't work. The only other X-factor is the Hub which I'm using, but I don't see how that would be an issue - but I may borrow a switch from my cousin to see if that clears the problem up. Still, as it is I really don't even have an issue with the slower speeds and network conjestion of hubs because I only run one device at a time on it. (I only have one display for all my devices - so running the PS2/Xbox at the same time as my 360 is not an issue)

[Rubius-sama]

Yeah I've got it hard wired. I've tried connecting wireless through my laptop and the NAT does not read "open," so that might have something to do with it.