[SOLVED] Port Forwarding and Game Server Hosting

[Briland 10]

I go to a University in America where the University acts as its own ISP. We plug directly into the internet we are provided and are not allowed routers. The way the internet is set up each individual client dose not get its own IPv4 address but an individual iPv6 address. The IPv6 addresses can be used for access on any port from any other client utilizing the University's ISP. The problem lies in that these IPv6 addresses can not be accessed by any client connecting from another ISP. I have spoken to the technical support at my university and they do not allow any form of port forwarding. I had hoped to use AirVPN to circumvent this problem by using your remote port forwarding to allow clients to connect from other ISPs.

 

My final goal is to run a Minecraft server (run on the university ISP) that can be accessed by clients outside of the University's ISP. I have attempted to use your port forwarding to achieve this goal but when I tried to test this clients could not connect to the game from outside the university's ISP but they could from within it. I tested running a web server using the same ports I forwarded for the game server (I tested both the same inbound and local port and differing ports) clients could connect to the web service from both outside and inside the ISP the server was running on.

 

Do you have any Idea what could be causing this problem? And if so how to resolve it?

If not are there any troubleshooting methods I missed?

[Staff 9751]

Hello!

 

Since the web server works fine, might it be that the Minecraft server is bound to your computer physical network interface or your internal IPv6 address? Is the Minecraft server configurable so that you can force it to bind to the tun adapter (the network virtual interface used by OpenVPN)?

 

Kind regards

[Briland 10]

The only network configuration setting, other than the port to run on, is the IP the server should bind to, I've never used this before and I'm not exactly sure how it works. Should I try binding to the internal IP address that I get from the tunnel adapter?

[Briland 10]

If so, how do I find that internal IP, I can't seem to find it in ipconfig, maybe I'm just blind.

[Staff 9751]

Hello!

 

Please bind the Minecraft server to your VPN IP (when connected, open a command prompt and issue the command "ipconfig"). You can recognize your VPN IP because it starts with 10, it's the IP address of your TAP-Win32 adapter.

From AirVPN Port Forwarding panel forward any TCP port . Enter 25565 as local port.

Minecraft clients will have to connect to :

 

We are also checking whether it's possible to bind a Minecraft server to an interface (which would be a little bit more comfortable for you), we'll update this thread in case.

 

Kind regards

[Briland 10]

 

I see traffic going through Local Area Connection 2, so that would be the tunnel used by AirVPN?

[Staff 9751]

Hello!

 

Correct, Local Area Connection 2 (10.4.3.194)

 

In your case, our suggestion is ambiguous because you are also inside a 10.247... network. In order to perform a disambiguation, the VPN IP address ranges are the following:

https://airvpn.org/specs

 

Kind regards

[Briland 10]

Ok, it seems to have bound correctly, I'll test it later when I have someone outside available. Thanks 

[Briland 10]

Just wanted to check back and let you know it worked Thanks for the help. I didn't know that applications only bound to ports on one adapter at a time. Now I know. Thanks for teaching me I love learning new things.

[Staff 9751]

Hello!

 

We're very glad to know it, thank you!

 

The Minecraft server can bind to a single IP address or every IP address (0.0.0.0, all adapters), not to a selection of IP addresses or adapters. It's odd that you needed to bind yours to the tun adapter IP address: we have tested it and it bound to all adapters without any configuration modification.

 

In general binding a service to the tun adapter is a good move when you have no control over the next network node, it prevents correlation attacks and also prevents leaks in case of unexpected VPN disconnection. Unfortunately if the service can be bound to an IP but not to an interface, the process becomes uncomfortable, because you need to re-insert in the service configuration the VPN IP address (which is dynamic) each time you re-connect to a VPN server.

 

We will soon offer a new dynamic DNS service to all Premium members. It will provide additional, relevant comforts and will let anybody wishing to reach your service to point to the same url, regardless of the Air VPN server the device running the service is connected to.

 

Kind regards

[Briland 10]

Thanks a lot for your help and the info. 

I personally have been having issues finding a good Dynamic DNS service and I would love to know that AirVPN could be my one-stop-shop. The main problem that I had been having in the past with DNS services though was the lack of good support for IPv6 detection in their software. Granted this becomes largely irrelevant when connecting to one of your servers through the client, as the line has already been established.