RV042G - Port Forwarding Not Working. Ideas?

[stuart_j_miller]

Hi Guys,

Hopefully someone can help me on this. I'm in the process of deploying an RV042G in our office and have an issue with port forwarding for our VOIP PBX. The setup/issue is as follows:

I have a 3CX IP PBX with a LAN IP of 192.168.51.49. The PBX is using SIP trunks for inbound/outbound calls. The RV042 has been configured under the 'Forwarding' section to forward SIP and RTP ports (5060, and 9000-9049 respectively) to the PBX (192.18.51.49) with seperate entries for both TCP and UDP. Outgoing connections work fine, however incoming connections (which the port forwarding is obviously for) are refused/no response. So I can only come to the conclusion that the ports are not fowarding correctly?

If I place the PBX in the DMZ everything works fine.

Could anyone shed any light on why port forwarding isn't working? And more importantly, how do I resolve this?

Thanks in advance, hoping someone can help me out here!

[Tom Watts]

Hi Stuart, this does not make sense. I do not remember this router model ever having a port forwarding issue.

Can you try to downgrade to the earliest version 3 firmware?

Whatever it is surfaced in the last year or so... may be sooner.

-Tom
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[stuart_j_miller]

Hi Tom,

Agreed, it is strange. You would've thought such a basic function as port forwarding would be pretty easy to get right by now.

I'll try a downgrade early tomorrow before the network starts getting busy and see how i get on. But before I do, I understand that if I am downgrading, the router will default to factory settings. Will a backup of settings from a later firmware release restore ok on earlier firmware? (I want minimum downtime so want to avoid manual config)

[mpyhala]

Stuart,

Your port range for RTP is very small. I have seen cases like this where opening a wider range of ports to the server helped to narrow down the issue. Try the following:

3CX_RTP [UDP/6000-50000]->192.168.51.49

If that allows incoming calls through then you know that your range was incorrect. You can then narrow the range down to what is actually necessary.

Have you tested port forwarding to a PC just to see if it works? You could forward 3389 for RDP and see if the PC is reachable from the WAN. Another good tool is RJL Port Listener. This tool allows you to make the PC listen on any TCP port that you select. For example you can make the PC listen on port 80 and then scan and see if the port is open.

RJL Port Listener:

http://www.rjlsoftware.com/software/utility/portlistener/

Open Port Check Tool: (You can scan 5060 and 5090 right now to see if SIP is forwarded and the server is listening)

http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/open-ports/

Please keep us updated.

- Marty

[durreavi]

Hello Mr. Miller

Please refers this article about how to configure port forwading in RV042 : Forwarding Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) to Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) on RV016, RV042, RV042G and RV082 VPN Routers

I hope this will be helpful.

Thanks

[Tom Watts]

Another idea is to set the remote management of the router to port 5060 or any of the RTP ports mentioned. If you're not able to remote manage the router on that condition then your upstream device is breaking it.

-Tom
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[stuart_j_miller]

Hi Guys,

Bit of an update... Had another email from Cisco suggesting I try reverting back to previous version of firmware. Well, I did this, but that would not accept the backup of settings, which would've meant I'd have to reconfigure manually. Not really an option as I had to take the office off-line to do this. So, quickly go back to previous firmware and.... BRICK. one RV042G completely dead with the diagnostics light flashing. So if it wasn't forwarding ports correctly, and now its Bricked itself, I'm prettu sure we can say its a hardware/software fault. Either way, I need a new router.

To be fair to the Cisco staff, once I'd replied and told them what happened, my mobile rang within a few minutes and it was the same person I've been speaking with at Cisco, to let me know they're sending out another unit, even though technically the warranty is RTB terms. HOPEFULLY this new one will get us up and running properly. Fingers crossed!

[mpyhala]

Hi Stuart,

Please keep us updated when the new device arrives. Port forwarding should work without issue, especially on the latest firmware. I recommend that you test the forwarding out of the box to ensure that no other setting is in conflict. Then if it is working load your old config and test again.

- Marty

[stuart_j_miller]

So the replacement router arrived today, quicker than expected too.

Started from scratch, just adding the port forwarding and dealing with the QOS for voip. And? It WORKS! Literally no other config required other than port forwarding, and QOS.

So, faulty router all along it seems. So glad thats over!!

[mpyhala]

Stuart,

Glad to hear it's working. Thanks for keeping us updated!

- Marty

[SamirD]

I NEVER save and restore settings, especially between firmwares.  Just take screenshots and rebuild the config manually.  It takes a bit of time, but is a lot easier than trying to diagnose an issue (if the firmware change fixes the issue).