The purpose of this guide is to help users who are not very savvy with networking, but not computer illiterate, to configure their routers properly to host ZSNES netplay sessions and to reduce the number of threads started for port forwarding issues.
Before reading this guide, you will want to read the NETPLAY.TXT and FAQ.TXT that came with ZSNES and your router’s manual, as well as any firewall software you may have installed on your computer.
Because this is a guide written by one person, I probably cannot provide you with specific details about your router’s configuration because I probably don’t own your router. I’ll provide at the appropriate point in this thread to a site with more router-specific details than I could ever provide here.
If you are using Windows Internet Connection sharing, this document won’t help you. I may update it in the future with details on ICS. For the time being, either get a real router (I recommend Netgear) or use the computer that’s connected directly to the modem, or even move the modem to the computer of your choice. ICS may be fine for web browsing and email and port forwarding is possible, but ICS introduces an inordinate amount of lag that other routers do not and it will not give you a very good netplay experience.
You may be asking yourself “Why can’t I just put my computer on my router’s DMZ? Isn’t that easier than setting up port forwarding rules?” Well, yes, it is easier, but the DMZ (de-militarized zone) has one HUGE security hole–the entire IP port range, all 131,072 TCP and UDP ports. Putting your computer basically forwards every incoming connection request to your computer just as if it were connected directly to the modem with out the firewall, while still allowing other computers on the network to use the internet and network like normal. Can you see the problem here? Your computer is left exposed to the internet just the same way as if it didn’t have router in front of it and it’s an open invitation to all of the unpleasantness that is the internet. It may be easy, but it’s like a cheap whore–you might come away clean, but your computer might catch the clap too.
And now on to the actual guide.
Step 1:
Before beginning, you need several pieces of information about your computer and network setup, namely your computer’s private IP address (the address you will be forwarding to), your router’s private (the address for configuring it) and public (the address your oponent will connect to) IP addresses and some information about ZSNES’ specific needs that need not be mentioned at this point.
First off, you need your computer’s private IP address. There are 2 ways to get that out of it, depending on what version of Windows you’re running.
Step 1.NT
On Windows NT/2k/XP/2k3, open the Start menu, then click Run and type cmd in the box and click OK. This will open a command prompt. In there, type ipconfig and hit Enter. This will produce something resembling the following:
Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.
D:\Documents and Settings\Tony>ipconfig
Windows IP Configuration
Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.1.1.16
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.1.1.1
D:\Documents and Settings\Tony>
The IP address should be pretty self explanatory, as it’s your computer’s private IP address. What you may not know is that 99% of the time, the Default Gateway is your router’s private IP address. Write these values down because you’ll need them later. You may close this window by typing exit and hitting enter or by your favorite method.
Step 1.9x
On Windows 95/98/Me, open the Start menu and click on Run and type winipcfg in the box. It will open up a new window. It will probably list the details for a PPP or dial-up adaptor first. You need to click the down arrow next to the adaptor name to open the dropdown menu listing all of the network adaptors on your system. In addition to your ethernet adaptor, it will probably also list one or more of the following: PPP adaptor, dial-up adaptor, AOL adaptor, 1394 network adaptor. By process of elimination, your network adaptor is most likely the other one that is not in my list. If there are several others (i.e. if you have ethernet WiFi) you may need to try each one. The one with a Default Gateway and IP address is the right one. Write those values down. The IP address is your computer’s private IP address and 99% of the time, the Default Gateway is your router’s IP address. Write both of these values down. Youll need them later.
Step 2:
In addition to your computers private IP address and default gateways (routers) IP address, youll also need your public IP address. Go to http://www.ipchicken.com and write down the IP address it gives you.
Step 3:
Here comes the hard part, working with your router. Because all routers are different, I cant possibly cover every possible configuration type, but the basic principle is the same on all routers.
To make any changes to the routers setup, youll have to get into it first. The first thing to try is punching in the Default Gateway address in your web browser. Occasionally, to add some degree of security, or at least frustration, they change the port number of this page, usually to 88 or 8080, or use secure HTTP. Examples would be as follows, assuming your default gateway is 192.168.0.1:
http://192.168.0.1
http://192.168.0.1:88
http://192.168.0.1:8080
https://192.168.0.1
https://192.168.0.1:445
Some routers use a default IP address of 172.16.0.1 instead:
http://172.16.0.1
http://172.16.0.1:88
http://172.16.0.1:8080
https://172.16.0.1
https://172.16.0.1:445
If those dont produce an administration page, consult your routers manual and check out http://www.portforward.com . They probably have specific instructions for your router.
Here are the settings you need to fill (where applicable) for ZSNES:
Service/Game Name: ZSNES
Public/External Port: 7845 (see notes below)
Private/Internal Port: 7845 (see notes below)
Private/Internal IP Address: (Insert your computers private IP address here)
Protocol: Both TCP and UDP (see notes below)
And the settings youll need in a separate forwarding rule for Zbattle.net:
Service/Game Name: Zbattle
Public/External Port: 4000
Private/Internal Port: 4000
Protocol: UDP only
NOTES:
Some routers allow you to enter a port range for forwarding multiple ports in one entry. In this instance, fill in 7845 for the starting and ending port.
If your router doesnt allow you to select both TCP and UDP at the same time, youll have to create two separate entries with the same settings, one for TCP and one for UDP. You can get by with just TCP, but UDP does not lag as much as TCP.
Step 4:
If you have a software firewall, all of this will be for naught if you dont configure that properly too. Youll either need to diable it (you probably dont need it with a hardware firewall anyways) or set it up to allow incoming connections on ports 7845 and 4000. Because there are so many software firewalls out there (ZoneAlarm, Norton, McAfee, Windows, etc.), I cant possibly cover them all in this guide. Consult your firewall softwares help files for instructions on how to disable it or allow the computer to accept connections.
Grand Finale
THATS IT! If done correctly, you should be ready to host ZSNES netplay games with another person (only one other computer at this time). All you have to do is give them your PUBLIC IP address as reported by http://www.ipchicken.com and plug that into ZSNES.