Thursday, September 4, 2008

DD-WRT Xbox LIVE open NAT

When I first setup my DD-WRT router I had problems with Xbox LIVE reporting strict NAT and then moderate NAT.

To achive "open" NAT status on Xbox LIVE your best bet is ALWAYS UPnP.

Not DMZ.
Not even setting up manual LIVE port forwarding.

Both of these methods fall apart if you have two Xboxs. UPnP allows the Xbox(s) to decide the best ports to use, when they should be open and when to close them.

By default the DD-WRT v24 firmware disables UPnP.

To Enable UPnP on DD-WRT v24:
NAT / QoS -> UPnP ->
UPnP Service: Enabled

Click Apply. You may need to reboot your xbox for changes to take effect.

In order for UPnP to work as intended the client device (the xbox) must be using DHCP to obtain an IP address from the UPnP enabled router. To verify your Xbox is using DHCP, as opposed to assigning itself a static ip - open the dashboard and navigate to:
System -> Network Settings -> Edit Settings ->
Select "IP Settings"
Verify "Automatic"

To see what your Xbox thinks about your NAT try the "Live Connection Test"
System -> Network Settings -> "Test Xbox LIVE Connection"

17 comments:

Unknown said...

I tried this method, and while one of my two 360's will report open, the other will report moderate. I've read some other posts on similar topics, but many of them deal with one wired into the router and one wireless. Both of mine are wireless. Is there some other setting that you can think of that perhaps I overlooked?

Anonymous said...

I had the same problem with DD-WRT and found not much help from the "documentation" or forums. I did try setting up UPnP as here (and various other arcane cargo-cult rituals from the forums) without luck; in the end I could only fix the issue by deleting DD-WRT and installing Tomato instead.

Anonymous said...

With two xboxes (360s, in my case), I found that enabling UPnP only solved the problem for one. To get the other working properly I had to throw it out into the DMZ.

SLeepdepD said...

Thanks.

Chris Grundemann said...

Awesome - I searched the dd-wrt control panel for upnp with no luck, this post saved my from smashing something. thanks.

Anonymous said...

YOU THE MAN!!
Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

I got the moderate NAT triangle from Xbox Live connection test. I got rid of it by turning on the DMZ on my laptops IP Address (I'm running ICS for Xbox Live) but I don't like it because my PC is unprotected with all ports open. I also tried opening ports TCP 80, UDP 88, TCP/UDP 3074, TCP/UDP 54 (Like MS Recommends) but this did not work. I would of preferred to have this setup though. I'm running DD-WRT. Anyluck for anyone else not using tomato?

Anonymous said...

Well, I'm running DD-WRT on a Linksys WRT300N and this fixed my problems. Although, I'm only running to one 360 wirelessly. It's kind of embarrassing that just setting most of the settings to 'automatic' fixes this lol. Most strict nat guides tell you to open ports and change the ip to dmz and make sure you have a static ip set for the 360, etc.

RMAN said...

Thanks man!

This solved my problem instantly!

First google hit and quick fix!

Braden said...

Perfect. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

THANKS!! This solved my problem. just one X360 and the NAT Moderate is now gone.

Unknown said...

Thank you very much. I had a static address set on my xbox 360s. I was only getting NAT moderate. Going to dynamic worked perfectedly. I have dd-wrt on Buffalo WZR-HP-300NH. dd-wrt v24sp2 build 14998.

buxtor said...

Tried the port forwarding that totally did not work. what a waste of time. Lots of attempts fooling with multiple settings to no avail. Thank you. Now DD-WRT works with my XBox.

jason said...

fixed it for me too. Thanks !!

Unknown said...

Doing this didn't help. all I did was enable DMZ for my xbox's ip address and IT WORKED! I don't know what the negative things about DMZ is but it worked and i'm going to leave it like that.

Bruce (PMToolsThatWork.com) said...

It added a port forward of
3074 UDP in the router (DD-WRT based) to the xbox and the xbox no longer reported an issue with NAT.

Great advice.

Thanks

Bruce