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I've got a Netcomm NB9W router and I'm trying to forward ports 7 and 9 for wake on lan.

I've set up a static IP address and I've configured both these ports using the Advanced\NAT\Port Forwarding option, but when I query the ports using either an online tool or PFPortChecker from Portforward, I'm told the port is not open or reachable.

Using the port scan utility in Mac OSX I can only see that 21,22,23,80 etc are open.

I've tried adding incoming ip filters for these ports but it still doesn't work.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

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Can you be more specific about your settings on the router? Are you querying from inside your network? Forwarding will only work from outside. –  CarlF Apr 5 '11 at 15:13
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1 Answer

A computer that is asleep doesn't have a IP address, so forwarding UDP 9 to a static address for wake on LAN doesn't work. You need to forward the port to a broadcast address. For a typical home network on and with a network mask of network the broadcast address would be

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Good answer, but any idea why I can't open the ports on the router? –  Ian Oakes Apr 6 '11 at 13:37
Are you sure it is the router that isn't working and not a firewall on the machine that is blocking it? I believe most machines are running a discard service on port 9, and so discarding the packets. Try creating a specific rule for inbound UDP 9. –  Mr Alpha Apr 6 '11 at 15:41
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