Setting up an Oldschool Quake Server with router

[coomarlin]

Yeah yeah I know your saying Quake 1 WTF?

Truth is, me and my buds from a long time ago used to play quake killer patch religously and after talking to the guys the other day we decided to get the old quake back out and mess around. Trouble is I don't know how to configure my router firewall to allow the other guys to connect. I have a Netgear 10/100 router with firewall and I want to run a dedicated server off of my laptop. But I can't find out what I need to do to allow outsiders to access my server. I've heard of port forwarding but don't know how to implement it with my router and quake. When I create a multiplayer game in Quake it asks me to choose a port. The default is 26000 I think. Should I change this and then how do I create the port forward on my router? Then after thats set up how will the other users connect to me? They'll need my IP address and I guess the port number. Correct?

Anyone, if anyone can simplify this for me I'd apprecatiate it. THanks.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Sounds like you're pretty much there. Specify router make/model and we can probably get full steps.

1. Find out the IP of your laptop - give it a static one for best results.
2. Start the dedicated Quake server on your laptop with whichever port you choose (we'll say 26000)
3. Log into your router's web-based administration tool (or however you work your router)
4. Look for the page on your router that indicates "port forwarding" or "applications"
5. Add the route to allow TCP and UDP communication to %LAPTOP_IP% on the port (26000)
6. Save changes
7. Blow the crap out of your buddies with the unfair ping advantage of being local to the server

- M4H

 

[coomarlin]

Okay, Im a little confused here. I did not have a hard coded Ip address. DSL reports said my IP was 71.61.209.XXX.

I logged into my router and tried to setup a port forward to that address on port 26000. It gave me an error stating it was not a valid IP. It wanted something like 192.168.1.XXX.

So I went into my TCP-IP config and hardcoded the IP 192.168.1.130. Ised subnet mask 255.255.255.0 and gateway 192.168.1.1.

So now what number do I give my friends to connect to? 192.168.1.130

 

[coomarlin]

Scratch that last one. Not more than 10 minutes after hard coding that IP address I lost all connectivity. I had to go back into TCP/IP and check "Obtain an IP address automatically".

What now?

 

[jersiq]

You want to forward the port to your "LAN" address. (192.xxx.yyy.zzz) that is assigned to your laptop/server by your router.
Give your friends your "WAN" IP (71.61.209.xxx), they probably won't need the port number, as that's application specific. (can't remeber for sure though, it's been a while since I played Q1)

 

[coomarlin]

Okay thanks guys. I think I have it.

I do have one question still. When I hardcoded my IP address I chose 192.168.1.136. Could I have picked any number I wanted for those last 3 digits?

 

[Wik]

Assuming your Router is 192.168.1.1 your IP range would be 192.168.1.2 - 192.168.1.255, Seting one computer as static in your TCP/IP is fine, as long as you do not use an address already assigned by the DHCP of your router. A better way to do it, would be to reserve an IP for your laptop in your DHCP settings on the router. Then set your laptop back to auto.

Also for your information, to obtain your internal IP, go to "RUN" and type "cmd" then "IPCONFIG" As far as your wan side, can be found easily by www.whatismyip.org

 

[marulee]

Port Forward for Any Router

 

[TheSiege]

not to hijack the thread, but for most games that require a server, Q1 Q3 UT and counter strike. does the server have to be on a computer that is playing? i have like 3 rackmounted servers in my basement. can i just make one of them the q3 server and then my buddies can play regardless of weather or not im there? and then i can connect my lappy to my network and join in?

oh yeah, im on fiber 15 up/down so bandwidth is not an issue

 

[coomarlin]

Originally posted by: TheSiege
not to hijack the thread, but for most games that require a server, Q1 Q3 UT and counter strike. does the server have to be on a computer that is playing? i have like 3 rackmounted servers in my basement. can i just make one of them the q3 server and then my buddies can play regardless of weather or not im there? and then i can connect my lappy to my network and join in?

oh yeah, im on fiber 15 up/down so bandwidth is not an issue

No the computer doesn't need to be the one playing. You should setup a dedicated server on one of the rackmount systems and leave it run for your friends. You'll just have to give them an admin password so they can change maps and things like that.

 

[TheSiege]

Originally posted by: coomarlin

Originally posted by: TheSiege
not to hijack the thread, but for most games that require a server, Q1 Q3 UT and counter strike. does the server have to be on a computer that is playing? i have like 3 rackmounted servers in my basement. can i just make one of them the q3 server and then my buddies can play regardless of weather or not im there? and then i can connect my lappy to my network and join in?

oh yeah, im on fiber 15 up/down so bandwidth is not an issue

No the computer doesn't need to be the one playing. You should setup a dedicated server on one of the rackmount systems and leave it run for your friends. You'll just have to give them an admin password so they can change maps and things like that.

sweet, is there a way to run like q1 q3 and ut all at the same time?

 

[coomarlin]

You know I'm not sure about that. Not sure how much resources it takes to run a server.

I got mine to work as a listen server and playing off of it while it was hosting the game. I want to setup the dedicated server like I mentioned to you earlier but I can't remember how to setup the server.cfg file. It's been a long time since I did that and quake info is getting hard to come by these days.

 

[InlineFive]

Originally posted by: TheSiege
sweet, is there a way to run like q1 q3 and ut all at the same time?

This should be possible with any OS and software combination out there. Make sure that if you are hosting the server 24/7 that you won't get nailed because of your ISP's ToS.

Originally posted by: coomarlin
You know I'm not sure about that. Not sure how much resources it takes to run a server.

I got mine to work as a listen server and playing off of it while it was hosting the game. I want to setup the dedicated server like I mentioned to you earlier but I can't remember how to setup the server.cfg file. It's been a long time since I did that and quake info is getting hard to come by these days.

I'm not really familiar with Quake servers but I did come across this Quake2 FAQ which says that "at the very least a 486" is necessary. I'm sure you have something a little better then that laying around!

 

[TheSiege]

i think they are dual p3s 933 with a gig ram.

 

[InlineFive]

Originally posted by: TheSiege
i think they are dual p3s 933 with a gig ram.

The fastest 486s go is 100Mhz. I think you'll be fine.

 

[TheSiege]

phew, but can i run multiple servers simultaneously like Q1 and Q3 and UT? on one machine

 

[coomarlin]

Now Im' having problems again.

I can connect to both a dedicated and a listen server from another computer on my LAN using my internal IP address. But when someone tries to connect to the server using the WAN address they get "Host error cl_connect: connection failed"

The weird thing is it does show the name of my server briefly before rejecting me. So I know it's at least talking to the server.

I've forward the post 26000 to my hardcoded IP address of the computer running the server. I've also disabled my windows firewall.

I'm not sure what to do now. Anyone?

 

[coomarlin]

I just can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I just upgraded the firmware on my Router, triple checked the port forwarding and disbaled my windows software router. Still getting the Host error message.

I can connect using the LAN address 192.168.1.136 but not my WAN address 71.xxx.xxx.xxx. I'm sure the port forwarding is working because when I try to connect via the WAN address It lists my quake server and then I get the host error message. So it is connecting to the server in some fashion.

I've tried setting up both dedicated and simple listen servers. I'm stumped.

 

[InlineFive]

Have you checked the logs on your Netgear router to see if there are any additional ports that you need to open? It's not uncommon for a game to use one port to search for a server and a second port to actually connect to it.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: TheSiege
phew, but can i run multiple servers simultaneously like Q1 and Q3 and UT? on one machine

Absolutely. You're not really doing much other than throwing traffic around in dedicated server mode - it doesn't have to render or even load the graphical game assets. You may want to get a program to manually set the affinity of the processes to a particular CPU though (or run under Linux and force the threads there) as out of those three you listed, IIRC only Q3A is SMP-aware.

oh yeah, im on fiber 15 up/down so bandwidth is not an issue

How much do you pay for that, if you don't mind me asking? I'd love something that would let me max out a few remote DSL/cable lines.

- M4H

 

[TheSiege]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire

Originally posted by: TheSiege
phew, but can i run multiple servers simultaneously like Q1 and Q3 and UT? on one machine

Absolutely. You're not really doing much other than throwing traffic around in dedicated server mode - it doesn't have to render or even load the graphical game assets. You may want to get a program to manually set the affinity of the processes to a particular CPU though (or run under Linux and force the threads there) as out of those three you listed, IIRC only Q3A is SMP-aware.

oh yeah, im on fiber 15 up/down so bandwidth is not an issue

How much do you pay for that, if you don't mind me asking? I'd love something that would let me max out a few remote DSL/cable lines.

- M4H

$42
including 2 static IPs

Right Here

 

[coomarlin]

Originally posted by: InlineFive
Have you checked the logs on your Netgear router to see if there are any additional ports that you need to open? It's not uncommon for a game to use one port to search for a server and a second port to actually connect to it.

Bingo!

I went in and opened a range of 10 ports and wouldn't you know it it worked. Funny thing is that in all of my reading about quake servers not once did I see that suggested. Anyway, it works just fine now. Looking forward to some serious fragging old school style.

BTW, THanks for the help.