Port confusion, please advice

[asundrus]

I've been reading tons of topics on the port subject, and to be honest, I had my doubts about making this topic.
But here goes:

I've seen a link to the Source Dedicated Server Guide posted at planethalflife here:
http://planethalflife.gamespy.com/View.php?view=HL2Guides.Detail&id=4&game=3
which tells us to forward these ports:

UDP 1200 (Friends Network)
UDP 27000 to 27015 (Gameport)
UDP 27020
TCP 27030 to 27039
TCP 27015 (SRCDS Rcon port)

I then see in another topic in this fine forum, that you have to forward each port individual, like 27000,27001,27002 up to 27015 etc.

Is this what you advice us to do? and please bear with me, it's late, and im getting bald by this nightmare of porting, which is normally something I sort within minuttes.

[HBS|Ryan]

if you have a newer router that can fwd port ranges go for it. if not, one by one is the way to go.

[Svuppe]

Actually, forwarding all of those ports is something I've been thinking about a lot. I have done it as stated above, but when I look at the actual data traffic, I only see incoming connections on UDP 27015. Never on any other port.

Are all of the above ports really nessessary? For forwarding in a router that is. Most routers normally allow anything OUTGOING anyway, so I guess only 27015 (or whatever your gameport is configured for) should suffice for INCOMING port forwarding.
Of course, if a firewall (or a more restrictive router) is involved, all of the above ports should be allowed outgoing access.

Please note: This is only pure speculation on my part. I haven't tried it yet, but I probably will one of these days.

[asundrus]

My netgear was not working all to well, so I changed to my old linksys, and all is working perfectly now, well almost, now i'm stuck in the "mani-admin-not-working-for-dods" hell, but this topic is not about that.

[Svuppe]

Svuppe Wrote:Are all of the above ports really nessessary? For forwarding in a router that is. Most routers normally allow anything OUTGOING anyway, so I guess only 27015 (or whatever your gameport is configured for) should suffice for INCOMING port forwarding.

And now I can answer my own question, as I have tested it on my server. The only port forwarding I currently am doing, is UDP 27015. Nothing else. And my server still works perfectly. The server connects to Steam master servers, and people join the game as usual.
So in case of not having a firewall/router that requires configuration for outgoing connections, the setup can be kept very simple.