chigirl97's profile

New Contributor II

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27 Messages

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Work From Home/Port Forwarding Issue

Hello! 

Recently my office is having everyone work for home a day or two out of the week to limit the number of people in the office because of COVID. I am having trouble accessing the database for the new ERP we are implementing. After adding my home IP address (it has not changed since they white listed it), I was told by their support to try the telnet command in command prompt to see if the port was blocked (It is not a part of the Cox blocked port list either). I am able to connect just fine when I am in the office (both with ethernet cable and on wifi), but when I go home it didn't work. So, after a little bit of research, I tried using port forwarding to gain access to the port, but it still has not worked. Does anyone have any ideas?

Things I've tried:

  • Having IP address white listed
  • Restarting router
  • Connecting with an ethernet cable
  • Port forwarding

Thank you in advance!

Honored Contributor III

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5.7K Messages

What were the results of your telnet?

New Contributor II

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27 Messages

"Could not open connection to the host: Connect failed"

It connects just fine when I am in the office, but when I am home it doesn't connect.

Honored Contributor III

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5.7K Messages

When you say "in the office," you're talking about being at work and on the private network of your office?  This would be normal because you have an authorized private IP address on a private network.

When your tech admin said "no VPN," were they referring to your privately-subscribed VPN or actually using the VPN of the offfice?  Meaning, does your work want you to connect directly to the cloud-based database...as opposed to your request first going to your work and then being re-directed to the cloud-based database?

New Contributor II

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27 Messages

Yes, when I mean "in the office" I mean that I am physically at my work office and connected to their network. "No VPN" is referring to the VPN of the office that I have to use to connect to the email and file server. Yes and no, I am not connecting to the cloud-based database through work but I am connecting directly because it is through another company (Our cloud-based ERP is provided through another company, we didn't create/build it ourselves). It should have work when I gave them my home IP address and they white listed it for accessing the DB (my IP has not changed since giving it to them), and it works for the other people who have needed to access when their IP addresses were white listed. They were unsure if my ISP was blocking the port, so they had me use/try telnet to see if it could connect. When it didn't connect, I figured I could try port forwarding, but no dice there either.

Honored Contributor III

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5.7K Messages

The computer you're using is the same as you use at work?  If so, I don't think its firewall or security software is blocking the port.

I'd verify your public IP address by typing my IP in a search engine.  Your IP may be duel-stacked with an IPv6.  If so, make sure the company allows both.

New Contributor II

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27 Messages

Yes, same laptop, and when I've looked up my IP address it only shows IPv4, which is the one they have white listed.

Honored Contributor III

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5.7K Messages

A "Bridge" is a LAN term to connect (bridge) 2 separate networks together.  You'd think, "Wouldn't this 'bridge' just be a router?  It could be a router to connect the networks but the router, in this case, would be called a Gateway.

The difference between a Bridge and a Router is the addresses each uses to...for lack of a better term...route traffic.  Routers use IP addresses to route and Bridges use MAC addresses.

FYI:  A MAC address is programmed into the NIC by its manufacturer.  A MAC address should be permanent but some manufacturers allow it to be programmable or changed.

In this case, you have a combo modem-router.  The Cox network terminates at the modem portion of this combo device and then transfers traffic to router portion.  It's all internally transferred so you have no access to it.

If you wanted to troubleshoot (or use a better router), you could turn off the router portion of this combo device.  Meaning...you don't want the router to assign IP addresses or route anything...but instead to just transfer the traffic from the modem to whatever is connected to the router portion, such as another router or computer.

Since traffic will still be traveling through the router portion, the router, in this case, is just "bridging" the traffic onto your network (the other router) and staying at Layer-2 of the networking protocol.  The other router would be Layer-3 (IP addresses).

Bottom line.  There are 2 networks involved:  the Cox network (modem) and your personal, private, home network (router).  The Pano is your private network because it controls all your devices connected to it either wired or wireless.  If you didn't want the Pano to control your home network, you could put it into Bridge Mode to just transfer all traffic to/from the modem to whatever would be your home network.

New Contributor II

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27 Messages

Okay, Thank you for the explanation!

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