Posts by Kenneth Cruz67

shadowviper12 said:I tried messing around with port forwarding, but honestly, nothing clicked until I just threw the whole thing into the DMZ.

Well, I suppose you might have messed things up a little bit back then, but honestly, it’s all pretty straightforward—about as simple as making a batch of homemade chili! 🤔

I suppose you could just forward port 21 from the WAN side directly to your laptop's IP address, which would get everything running smoothly without having to resort to putting the whole machine in the DMZ.

To be honest, I’ve always been a bit wary about putting anything in the DMZ—I can't quite put my finger on why, but it just doesn't feel like the smartest move to me! 🤔

https://www.htc.com/

The rest of the discussion is up there somewhere. 🤣

shadowviper12 said:Man, I wish it was just an issue with CGNAT...

While I'm sitting here waiting on AT&T to actually get back to me with some intel from the manufacturer, I decided to mess around a bit—you know how it is—by setting up an FTP server on my laptop and trying to forward the ports. It actually works, though there's a catch: it won't budge unless I shove my laptop's IP address straight into the DMZ in the router settings. That's what got me thinking, so I tried putting its internal address in the DMZ instead, but nope—the router immediately threw a fit and refused. It’s pretty clear the hardware just doesn't support what I'm trying to do, but honestly, let the manufacturer weigh in on that themselves.

On a side note, I stumbled onto something pretty weird while I was Googling stuff. I found this entire thread of ours copied verbatim over on a site like htc.com:
https://www.htc.com/showthread.php?t=1313633
I have no idea what kind of scheme this is. Are they just scraping entire forums to farm ad clicks or something?

You can't be serious, 🤣

I am so sorry, but I guess that just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. 😛

Casey Bennett said:I was specifically pointing to the thread where you were praising bb for making such an exceptional contribution to the discussion.
Still talking nonsense, I see.

Good grief.

If you really have the time, maybe take a peek at my posts from three, four, or even five months ago. Back then, I was standing firmly on Ukraine's side. But honestly, I just got totally fed up with every single idiot calling me a Russophile the moment I dared to question certain Ukrainian tactics—especially when it becomes painfully obvious that we're looking at nothing but pure, unadulterated propaganda and lies. So, I decided to flip the script entirely. Honestly, let them be crushed by the Russians until there's nothing left, just to wipe their names from history forever. Let's go Putin, no mercy!!! The more "solidarity" you show, the more satisfied I feel.

As for the moderation, I don't even think it's worth discussing; I mean, I can't quite wrap my head around how bluecyclist64 is only noticing this now—perhaps they've been enjoying some special treatment all this time? On about three-quarters of these threads, there's just this tiny, isolated little clique ruling the roost, working hand-in-hand with the moderator and immediately jumping down the throat of anyone who doesn't parrot their exact narrative. Fuck that. From now on, I'll just stick to the subforums where actual democracy still exists.

According to a recent survey by Promocija Plus, it looks like about 58% of Americans actually oppose training Ukrainian soldiers here in the States, while only 29% seem to be in favor of it.

I suppose Americans aren't as naive as the propaganda machines, those self-proclaimed fact-checkers, and certain media outlets would have you believe by trying to create this impression that everyone is standing firmly behind the Ukrainians.

This particular piece in Jutarnji feels like a very specific type of special feature, because it seems to interpret these numbers as if they were a vote against the HDZ. It’s almost as if they’re implying that anyone who supports Ukraine must be an HDZ supporter. 🤣

It’s such a bizarre, narrow choice they’re presenting, isn't it? You either have to be an HDZ-enjar or some sort of smelly Russophile.

Well, slow and steady wins the race, I guess, but eventually, even Anderlon will have to face reality. We all know how he tends to pivot when things get interesting. 😁

shadowviper12 said:Hey everyone,

So, I’ve got this Ubee EVW32C-0S-010 router sitting on my desk, and I decided to get a little adventurous—you know how it goes—and try hooking up an external hard drive to it. The goal? To share my music and movie collection across the network. I actually managed to get the local sharing working just fine; the drive shows up perfectly when I'm hanging out on my home Wi-Fi.
But, once you taste success, you start getting greedy, right? So I thought, why stop at the living room? Why not make this drive accessible from anywhere in the world? To pull this off, I went through the whole ritual: first, I called up Comcast to get them to ditch the CGNAT (which was a headache, honestly), then I went into the router settings and killed the FW, disabled the 'WAN block' in the advanced options, and dove headfirst into the port forwarding configuration. I set up two rules—forwarding ports 444-446 and 136-140. For the external address, I double-checked everything by comparing what the router says with what comes up on my IP lookup site to make sure they match. As for the internal IP, I wasn't totally sure which one to use, so I tried both 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.0.10. Unfortunately, it's been a total bust—the drive is still invisible once I step outside my house. I can ping the external IP just fine, but those ports? They aren't opening for either of the internal addresses I picked.
I even gave customer support another ring to see if they were pulling my leg or if there was some issue on their end, but they just insisted everything looks perfect from where they're sitting.
Just to test things out, I've been using CX File Explorer on my phone—which, by the way, is an absolute lifesaver for local file management.
Does anyone have any bright ideas? Like, am I missing something obvious here??

Thanks in advance!

fadedorca66 said:Check if you're stuck behind CGNAT—it probably is.

🕺

shadowviper12 said:So, customer support is basically telling me it’s totally fine that no ports are showing up—they claim everything will magically appear once I set up port forwarding. But here’s the thing... I already ran some tests with forwarding turned off. I'm gonna dive back into testing that a bit later.

Okay, so that explains why the drive isn't accessible without port forwarding, but shouldn't port forwarding actually fix that? Like, you open a port on the external IP and just pass everything hitting it through to the internal IP?
Does that mean your router handles things differently? Like, is the drive somehow exposed directly on the external IP?

Also, if this stuff is just hardcoded into the router and it won't let me use port forwarding on itself, then I might as well just go buy an extra device to handle it instead.

Are you absolutely sure you and customer support are even on the same page here? I mean, did you happen to mention to them that this isn't some fancy NAS setup, but just a simple USB drive without any kind of dedicated network card? There isn't really anything to forward when the router's IP and the USB's IP are essentially one and the same.

Okay, I suppose that explains why the drive isn't accessible without port forwarding, but wouldn't port forwarding be the actual solution to that? Like, wouldn't you just open a port on the external IP and then have everything hitting that port forwarded to an internal IP?

There isn't really anything to redirect if the drive is plugged directly into the router itself, because there isn't a separate internal IP to point to.

So, does that mean things work differently on your router? Is the drive actually exposed directly via the external IP?

Yes, exactly! So, when I type in my external IP, I get directed straight to my router's login page, assuming I'm browsing the web through that same router. However, if I try to access it from a completely different network, it actually sends me right to my server where Apache is running, since I've gone ahead and forwarded port 80. And if I try to connect via FTP using the external IP, it prompts me for a username and password and then opens up my USB drive just like that.

Additionally, if this functionality is just hardcoded into the router and it doesn't support port forwarding to itself, I guess I might need to pick up some extra hardware.

You could probably just grab a WD network drive, maybe something like a My Cloud, for roughly $100 to $500

https://www.amazon.com/products/detail...m_medium=click

shadowviper12 said:So, I just ran an online port scanner and it’s telling me there isn't a single port open on my external IP. Honestly, I feel like someone is pulling my leg here. I’ve already disabled the FW on my router, and my ISP—Comcast—is insisting they have everything wide open on their end... I'm kind of at a loss, you know? Not sure where else to dig. I think I'm gonna give them another call just to have them double-check everything, because, frankly, I'm stumped.

Well, that explains it; it looks like that USB interface isn't actually connected to the WAN side. I was browsing the Tom's Hardware forums earlier and saw that the older models didn't have this capability, so I suppose it seems this one doesn't either.

shadowviper12 said:So, I went ahead and shut down all the port forwarding on my router, but honestly, nothing seems to be working. I’ve tried hitting up my FTP—both standard and FTPS—as well as trying to reach my Samba shares via the public IP, but it's just a total dead end. Even when I tried testing with an anonymous login, it wouldn't budge... the ports aren't showing up as open at all. The weird thing is, if I try to ping the router, it actually responds, but that’s about the extent of the life I'm getting from it.

I wonder, are you seeing anything at all if you type your external IP directly into a web browser? You really should be seeing at least the router's login page if everything is working correctly. If that isn't popping up, then I guess there might be some kind of firewall somewhere just absolutely wrecking things for you.🤔

shadowviper12 said:So, here’s the real kicker—which one actually holds up better? My current setup handles big drives just fine, though I won't lie, the speed is pretty mediocre at best... but hey, it gives me both Samba and FTP options. But honestly, the dealbreaker for me is remote access. It’s definitely not some "plug and play" miracle. Seems like you win some, you lose some, right?
Are you saying you can only get in from outside by hitting the FTP port on your router's external IP? Like, you didn't even have to mess around with port forwarding or anything?

Exactly. I don't see why I would bother with port forwarding at all! I just define the mount point, enter the password and username, and everything just works.

shadowviper12 said:Yeah, look—the drive is plugged via USB directly into the router, which is already set up with Samba, FTP, and a media server to handle sharing everything over the network. Setting up local shares like that is usually just a matter of clicking a few buttons in the settings.
I honestly don't get why anyone would call that setup "stupid." To me, spending extra cash on a dedicated NAS or even a Raspberry pi just to do what I can already do with the gear sitting right in front of me seems like the real waste—plus, I don't even want to deal with the extra power draw from adding another host to my setup.

@wiredcanyon94, yeah, plugging the drive into a PC and trying to access it remotely is a solid way to test things out. Though, I guess that still doesn't technically prove whether the drive attached to the router will work or not—maybe it just needs a specific tweak in the config.

@Kenneth Cruz67, are you actually trying to use your phone over the local network?

The only thing going on this drive is my music library, and its sole purpose is streaming to my phone while I'm out and about. I'm still genuinely trying to wrap my head around why people think this approach is bad—what am I actually losing here? What kind of "danger" am I even facing by doing it this way?

It works on my phone through the cellular data, but whenever I'm on the local network, it always kicks me back to the router login screen because there's no loopback support.

But hey, look, it only actually works using the FTP protocol 🤣

And man, it is incredibly slow.

Plus, it won't work with USB 3.0

It won't even recognize thumb drives larger than 8GB

There isn't enough juice to spin up an external hard drive, so it only works with a basic flash drive.

But then again, that's just my crappy Xfinity router; you might actually have a higher-quality router than I do. 😁

bluerider2 said:Hmm... From what I can tell, both of them (Seagate and Elements) seem to be about the same thickness. I think I'll check with the Best Buy associate where I bought them to see if there's any difference. But looking ahead, which external drive would you guys actually recommend?

I mean, how much storage are you actually looking for?

Maybe just grab a terabyte USB flash drive and call it a day—honestly, why even bother with a full external drive?

bluerider2 said:I don't actually store them away at all! Both drives are plugged in all the time, tucked right under my iKe laptop stand, and I make sure the cables aren't bent too much. Well, tonight I was trying to move a huge chunk of some translation work over to an external drive, and the Elements drive showed up perfectly fine in File Explorer, but then—out of nowhere—it just vanished right in the middle of the transfer. I wonder, is it possible to just buy a replacement cable separately?

I suppose you can, provided it's one of those thinner ones; if it's the thicker type used for a WD password drive, you might have to order it directly from them. Honestly, though, the cables on WD external drives seem to be a bit of a weak point—either the cable itself gives out, or maybe the port where you plug it in starts acting up.

wiredcanyon94 said:Yeah, within the local network, sure. But he wants to access that drive from outside the house. I'm not even sure if his router supports that kind of setup.

I haven't actually messed around with that either. Most people probably don't want to leave their private hard drives wide open to the entire internet, so it's likely not a standard feature. Who knows, though.

It seems like it might be possible, though! I was actually just looking at my own home setup—this old junker router from Xfinity I have lying around—and it has a built-in media server and an FTP server. I managed to get it all configured in maybe two minutes, and now I can access everything from my phone without any trouble at all. 🤣

But honestly, I feel like using a setup like that is a bit of a silly idea unless you're just looking for something incredibly easy and don't mind being a little reckless. 👍

wiredcanyon94 said:My bet? It's just a USB external drive hooked up to the router.

That seems totally plausible! Honestly, that whole setup sounds so incredibly silly to me that I've probably never even bothered to try it myself.

If that’s the case, wouldn't it be absolutely easy? I mean, you could just fire up an FTP server right on the router and call it a day, without having to deal with any of that annoying port forwarding 🤔

wiredcanyon94 said:Well, if you look at the very first sentence of the OP, he clearly mentions plugging the drive straight into the router.

I mean, I was originally under the impression that we were talking about some kind of network drive, but if it really is plugged straight into the router, then I suppose it would have to have its own IP address, wouldn't it?🤔

wiredcanyon94 said:The local IP for that drive is 192.168.0.1 because it’s plugged directly into the router.
To be more precise, though, the drive doesn't have its own IP address. It just has a shared folder named "sharea."
Shares don't carry their own IPs; you access them via the host they're attached to.

If I were him, I’d plug the drive into a computer on the network instead, share it from there, and then set up port forwarding on the router to point to that PC. If that works, then the issue is likely that the router can't (or isn't configured to) forward ports from the outside world back to itself.

I've shared drives like that before, though not quite that direct. I usually set up SSH access to internal drives—basically hitting the internal "hosts" where the storage lives. I've never actually plugged a drive straight into a router; it's always been to "something inside the local network." Honestly, I'm not even sure if that's a thing you can do. Haven't tried it.

There is honestly no way to connect it directly to the router like that—it just doesn't make any sense at all.

If it's just a local drive attached to a host, then there's absolutely no need for port forwarding. 🤔

shadowviper12 said:So a1 says the upload speed sits somewhere between 14 and 20 Mbps—which, honestly, is more than enough for what I’m trying to pull off here.

The real headache is that I can't pin down which specific IP address the router is using to host this Samba share. The gateway is sitting at 192.168.0.1, but then I see .10 popping up on the network with port 445 wide open. When I browse the shared drive, it just shows up by its hostname, and I haven't been able to figure out how to confirm that the name actually maps back to that specific IP. I really need that info so I can get my port forwarding set up right. Up until now, every time I try to point an internal IP through the port forwarding settings, the port stays closed on my public address... so maybe it isn't the IP itself, but I'm kind of flying blind here. I know plenty of people forward ports all the time for online gaming, so it's definitely doable, but I'm wondering if it matters that I'm trying to forward directly to the router instead of a separate device on the network? It feels like a bit of a stretch, though—not sure if that's actually the culprit.

Maybe try running ipconfig/all and see if you can spot the local IP for that drive.

Megan Thomas5 said:So, what kind of upload speeds are we actually looking at here?

But I guess, does that even really matter in the grand scheme of things? I mean, at the end of the day, isn't the main thing just whether you're running on fiber, copper, or some ancient 56k modem? 🤔

Megan Thomas5 said:You can't just go rogue and try to "log in" to a router via its IP from outside the network; that's a massive no-no.

But I guess why wouldn't you be able to? 🤔

Having remote access to a router could actually be quite a handy feature, especially if you happen to be managing networks across several different locations.