Static IP Addresses and Port Forwarding Tutorial

hi i'm cameron from audiolink and today we're tackling a tricky topic static ip addresses and port forwarding for those less experienced with computer networking the technical details can be hard to grasp but we'll bypass this by focusing on the much simpler concepts of ip addresses and port forwarding we'll close out this tutorial with a step-by-step walkthrough of setting up port forwarding through a router and also going over the concepts so the steps can be applied to any brand of router port forwarding can provide an improved consistent connection when transferring audio over ip and can help significantly reduce dropouts in programs like source connect the next part of the tutorial is tailored to those who have limited knowledge of computer networking and the internet if you are instead someone who is looking for direct information for setting up port forwarding on your network feel free to skip ahead and if you find this video helpful please click like and subscribe to our channel for future content before we jump in it's important to note that any situation involving internet connectivity is best applied to a wired ethernet connection all right let's check it out all of our devices that connect the internet do so through a codified system of addresses called ip addresses your internet modem or router at home has its own ip address and when your computer phone or other devices connect to the internet the connection is labeled with your home network's ip address from your router this can be thought of as similar to a phone number your home network then is like a corporate phone system with many phones connected to each other by one number individually distinguished by their extension numbers your devices on your home internet connection can connect to each other in this way as well as making outgoing calls and receiving calls from the internet an internet router acts much like an operator in this analogy directing and connecting you to other ip addresses in the most basic understanding this is how internet connections operate that's awesome but how is a static ip address any different as mentioned each computer or device on your network is assigned an ip address these are internal ip addresses only on our local area network lan and not available as addresses on the web while these devices can see ip addresses from each other on your local area network their individual ip addresses can't be seen outside of your lan they often start with 192.168 or 10.0 these ranges of ip addresses are reserved for this purpose so no device connected directly to the internet would use one of these the web itself is called a wan wide area network the default setting for routers is to automatically assign ip addresses to each device when it connects to the local area network this is done by a system called dhcp dynamic host configuration protocol which is native to your router the keyword here is dynamic your device's ip addresses can and will change anytime it's restarted for example you need to assign a static ip address to your computer so that it is always tied to the same one if you want to use port forwarding for that machine both of these concepts together make for a significantly more stable internet connection but what is port forwarding and how does it relate to your static ip address in addition to the ip address of each device there are also different ports if our ip address is like a phone number then ports are the extension numbers in the phone system there are many ports 65 535 of them and some are used for a singular specific purpose while others have no assigned purpose at all for example your web browser uses port 80 and file transfer protocol ftp uses ports 20 and 21. each standard assigned port carries a particular protocol special services and programs like source connect use specific ports to send and receive data additionally your router can block things on all but a few specific ports you may have heard of this it's commonly called a firewall the router can also route information to specific ports on different machines this is achieved when you assign the internal ip address of your computer or device so that your router will know where to direct information to on a specific port this in its simplest form is called port forwarding so when your router receives a call from the wan on your hypothetical phone system it sends that call to all the ports and devices on the lan all the phones ring at once but with port forwarding the idea is like dialing that extension number on the phone call now the information or call is forwarded directly to the port that's been assigned this can be a game changer for audio over ip connections programs like source connect can use port forwarding to keep a consistently stable connection packets of audio information sent over an internet connection will go directly to the designated computer if you feel as though you are struggling to understand ipnetworking or port forwarding some links with more information are provided in the description below the same can be said for those who understand the concepts discussed here but are curious to learn more in-depth information regarding port forwarding with that covered we're going to move on to a direct step-by-step tutorial for port forwarding first we're going to be assigning a static ip address to our computer and then set up port forwarding on a specific protocol the concepts here apply to all devices however the step-by-step instructions are specific to mac os depending on your computer device router or internet provider the interfaces shown here will vary but the concept remains the same you may have different forms or tabs to navigate but an ip address is an ip address is an ip address all the same during the instructions i may make reference to windows users but it will not be the focus of this video on my mac os computer i'm going to open my system preferences here i'll find network settings you may have seen this menu before while setting up a basic wi-fi or ethernet connection i'm going to select my ethernet connection and then click on advanced settings in the new window we're going to ignore many of the tabs present for what we're doing today we only need to make changes in the tcp ip tab this is where the dhcp which assigns iop addresses to our machine on the local area network can be modified to maintain a static ip address we're going to focus on configuring ipv4 we don't have to worry about ipv6 for our purposes today where the window lists our ipv4 address we're going to highlight and copy that text using command c now in the drop down menu above we'll select manually this means we'll be setting the ip address of the computer manually we'll paste the ip address we copied before using command v this time and now we've manually assigned the ip address easy as that your subnet mask and router numbers should remain the same as they were before if not you can use the drop down menu to return to dhcp copy the numbers listed there onto a text document or write them down on paper and then manually place those in as well when that's complete click ok and then apply with that done we now understand and are utilizing a static ip address congratulations it wasn't so advanced after all was it let's go over a quick walkthrough for those using windows 10. i've booted up my gaming machine so that you can follow along first select start then settings and finally network and internet for those using wi-fi like i am right now select wi-fi and then select your network that you're connected to for ethernet users select ethernet then ethernet networks you're connected to now under ip assignment select edit and under edit ip settings select manual now we can turn on ipv4 and specify an ip address subnet prefix and gateway when you're done just click save well done with a static ip address in place we can now assign a port on that address to forward from the lan to the wan to accomplish this we'll have to access the settings for our router if you've set a custom name and password for your router then you've done this before if not the first step is to enter your router's ip address into the address bar of your web browser this should be the same router number we saw listed on the tcp ip page you can copy and paste it from there if that doesn't work you can also check the physical hardware for your router and see if the ip address is listed there while observing the ip address also make note of the username and password for your router if you have not changed these in the past they will be one of many standard username password combos in the description below is a link to a list of default username password combos for common router makes and models when we've successfully entered the ip address into our browser we'll be brought to a login page where we can use the username and password we made note of we will now have access to the router settings and the first thing we'll do is open the advanced settings panel just like before there will be a lot of information to take in but for our purposes today we won't need to worry about most of it this is also a reminder that my tp-link router page may look different from your router settings there may be different names and categories for what we're working with today but the fundamental concepts will still apply follow along as best as you can to complete the port forwarding process we navigate to the advanced routing tab or on my interface nat forwarding here we'll find another tab labeled port forwarding which for me is called virtual servers great to make port forwarding happen we need to make a new rule the rule just means the port forwarding will be set in place for our purposes we're setting up port forwarding for audio recording specifically for the use of source connect so our rule will assign the ip address we tied to our machine to the ports used by source connect which happened to be 6000 through 6001. we set the ip address to our computer's static ip address that we set earlier if your router asks for an external ip address you can use 0.0.0.0 and then finally we'll select udp udp is used for audio and tcp is used for video so we'll stick with udp after naming the port forwarding rule we click enable and we're done we did it congrats now in source connect on our settings page in pro or in our drop down menu in standard we can configure and test our port forwarding this tutorial had a lot to take in and if you still need more information or resources please look to the additional information linked in the description below thank you for sticking with us through this and congratulations on making it to the end this is an important but often not discussed topic in audio recording over ip and you're one step closer to the best audio quality you can provide and receive if you have any further questions feel free to contact us at info audiolink.com and again if you found this video helpful please click like and subscribe to audiolink for more content from all of us at audiolink have a great day goodbye

Channel: AudioLink_MA

Views: 52,011

Keywords: IP Address, Static IP, Audio over IP, Source-Connect, Port Forwarding, AudioLink, Link, Source, Connect, Interent, Audio, Audio Internet, Stable Connection

Id: 0anm5cRY2Uk

Length: 12min 48sec (768 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 06 2020