Port forwarding without router

[gtrx]

Hi, I've been desperate about making a server. I've already configured my whole server from admin passwords to maprots. Is there any way on Windows (preferred) or Linux to forward ports easily without a router? I connect to the internet with a mobile hotspot from my phone (yes, I know, very cheap) and other tutorials:
- Are too hard for me to understand
- Only work if you don't know your router password
- Are for a different game and some things are specifically for that game

[X-Ray_Dog]

Pretty sure you aren't going to host anything from a mobile hot spot since most of those networks are shared and therefor you aren't going to forward any ports period past the cellular service.

I might be wrong, just personal experience.

[vonunov]

The reason port forwarding is necessary is because of NAT. The address on the outside of the router is in a different network from the addresses on the inside of the router. That means that when someone connects to your server using the outside IP address, in order for that traffic to reach your server which actually has an address on the inside of the router, the router has to know how to translate the destination IP address. So you tell the router that when it gets traffic on the outside IP on port 1234, it should send it to the inside IP where your server is. Otherwise the router has no idea what to do with the traffic, because it has already reached its destination, which is the outside IP address.

Now in your case, I know nothing about your cellular network, but there are basically two possibilities. Or maybe three.

Either there is no NAT, in which case there is no need for port forwarding. Or there is NAT, and it is on a router that you can't control, so you're boned.

The third possibility is that there is no NAT, so you don't need to port forward, but the ports you will need to use are still firewalled somewhere. Or the instability of your connection and IP address assignment will get in the way of running a server well.

I recommend a cheap VPS instead.

[stef]

I recommend a cheap VPS instead.

Yes, because someone who can't master port forwarding (or telling real internet connections and mobile crap apart) certainly has all the necessary skills to successfully admin a VPS :)

Well, at least, if his VPS gets rooted and starts spamming, his hoster will shut it down for him.

You should see NAT and the accompanying need to forward ports across it as a security measure at the lowest level. It protects your home network from the evil internet at least a little bit. Like keeping the rat poison on the high shelf to prevent the toddler from getting it. If you choose to forward ports and therefore expose your network to worldwide access, you should at least know a little bit about what you're doing. "too hard for me to understand" is neither help nor excuse, when someone else deleted your system or used it to attack others on the net.

If you have specific questions about running an AC server, go ahead and ask.

[vonunov]

Yeah I'm not saying it'll go great but at least theoretically someone might want to use the server at some point, as opposed to if it were hosted on a mobile internet

Is there something specific you're going to do where you really need to run your own server? It's extremely saturated right now so there's not much point if you just want to run a public server that people actually connect to, especially if you're not going to compete with servers that are hosted in datacenters instead of at home.