Problems with my TF2 Server!

[Ragrappy99]

I'm currently trying to get a dedicated TF2 server up and running. Having never have even tried anything related to servers before, it was harder than I thought it would be.

Anyhow, my situation:
I followed this guide to creating my own server. Followed every instruction and things seemed to be working. By "working" I mean percentages were going up, words were moving and progress bars were travelling full steam ahead.

I ran my server from the command prompt using the command listed in the guide, "c:\HLserver\orangebox\srcds.exe -console -game tf -hostport 27015 +maxplayers 24 +map ctf_2fort". My server is only showing up to me in the LAN list of servers.

Now would probably be a good time to direct any readers to this thread I made on the TF2 forum. It contains pretty much everything I have tried to make my server playable and what errors came up. Please, if you intend to help, read through that thread!

When my friend trys to join with my IP, he gets a "connection failed after 4 retries" error.

I'll be really gratefull if someone can help me with this, because I don't have any knowledge of where to go from here!

Ta.

[Spartanfrog]

Are you using hamachi vpn?

[Ragrappy99]

I'm afraid I have no idea what that is..

So probably not.

[Spartanfrog]

Oh then nevermind. Just that your ip in the other thread started with a 10 which usually indicated hamachi. Anyway, do you give your external ip to your friends?

[Ragrappy99]

I gave my external IP to my friend and he tried to connect from the console. That's when he got the "4 retries" error.

[BjornR1989]

I've still got the feeling that something went wrong with the port forwarding.

Somebody nmap that IP.
This is a test on my WAN IP:

Code:

root@ddbs-nb2:~# nmap ddbs.dyndns.org -p 27015

Starting Nmap 5.00 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2010-07-13 15:30 CEST
Interesting ports on ddbs.dyndns.org (78.21.151.164):
PORT       STATE    SERVICE
27015/tcp open      unknown

Which indicates that i've opened the 27015 port and my server is responding to it.


There are a couple of possibilities here:
- The server isn't listening on the right interface or IP
- The server isn't listening on the right port
- The ports aren't correctly forwarded
- A firewall is blocking access

[Ragrappy99]

Sorry, you're gonna have to bear with me here.. I'm really inexperienced with this sort of stuff, so I have no idea how to "test my WAN IP" :<

I thought I had forwarded the ports right. I've done it before with other stuff and it seemed pretty simple.. I've screencapped my port settings anyhow:


And the command prompt window thing that runs the server:


Not sure if those are helpfull, but just so you can see what I've got.

[BjornR1989]

Seems like i'll need to take some words back, the port forwarding seems ok and it's set to the server IP.
I use nmap to scan hosts/ports. There are similar (graphical) applications available for Windows. I'd propose to scan your IP but not many are comfortable with giving their IP publicly to unknown people.

If it responds with closed or stealth one option is still valid: The firewall, if it's open then making a connection should be possible.

[Ragrappy99]

You know where it says "Network: IP 10.0.0.4", is that the IP I should be giving to my friends to connect with?
Also in the TF2 Forum thread someone said I need a wired connection to host a server, is that true?

[BjornR1989]

Yes you need a wired connection on your server. Wireless networks are half-duplex and have lots of overhead. On top of it all other networks can and will interfere with yours.
If your server is behind a NAT router they will not be able to connect to your server because:
- The router does not know where that packet should go so (if it's not forwarded) it's dropped.
- Behind a NAT router private IP addresses are used. These are:

10.0.0.0 through 10.255.255.255
169.254.0.0 through 169.254.255.255 (APIPA only)
172.16.0.0 through 172.31.255.255
192.168.0.0 through 192.168.255.255

So when you give others your external (WAN) IP this is what happens:
- Your WAN IP identifies you on the internet, everyone will connect to that IP.
- Your NAT router acts as a firewall, blocking all incoming requests. It also translates the internal to external adressing.
- When you forward a certain port to an IP in your local network you're effectively punching holes in its firewall and telling it "If a packet arrives on this port, send it to my TF2 server".

Your internal IP is not accessible on the internet, that's why forward rules exist.

Is the firewall on your server turned on? If so, try to temporarily disable it and try again.