How Do I Make My Xbox 360's I.P. Address Static?

[Kiwi Man]

Howdy Yall.

(Here comes a Trademark Kiwi Man Mega-long Post so watch out.)

After recently getting an Xbox 360 I started playing on Xbox Live with Halo 3. When I joined a game I was warned my NAT was strict and so after researching what it was and getting disconnected from games I realised I wanted it open.

I've looked at quite a few sites and they all say basically the same thing, make the consoles I.P. Address Static, Forward Ports UDP 88,UDP 3074 and TCP 3074, then play.

I've been to http://portforward.com and I think I basically understand it all. My router/modem is a D-Link DSL-302G and I know how to go to it's software and forward ports. (I think. I haven't actually forwarded any yet so I may still find I don't know how to do it, but it looks fairly straightforward.)

I also know my Subnet Mask, Gateway, and Primary and Secondary DNS servers. So I should be able to do it.

BUT:

So far I've connected to Xbox Live with the I.P. Settings and DNS Settings set to automatic. While I was connected I wrote down all the numbers, (hence how I know the subnet mask, gateway etc,) and then changed the settings to manual. I put the same numbers in, thinking that this would mean I would have the same I.P. Address everytime, while still being able to connect to Live. But I can't because the DNS test fails.

I fiddled around a bit and found that the DNS test only fails when the I.P. settings are set to manual, even though the I.P. test still passes. (And the same values work when the I.P. settings are automatic.)

I then tried giving the I.P. address a different suffix, 255, 88. Neither worked. A friend at school told me that I'd never get it to work because DSL-302Gs are gay and old, but I'm sure that shouldn't matter.

So the problem is in the I.P. settings: the numbers set automatically don't work when they're assigned manually and I was wondering if anyone here knows what's wrong.

In case this information is relevant, I'd just like to say that our 302G modem has one ethernet port, so when I want to go on Live I unplug the computer from the internet and then jack in to the console. Also, I think that our modem's/router's DHCP range thing is from the I.P. address X.X.X.3 to X.X.X.254. That's why I tried setting the 360's I.P. to ending with 255, (outside the range,) but still, I shouldn't need to do that should I because if the 360's the only thing plugged in, then nothing else can be getting assigned the same I.P. address can it?

Anyway. I hope what I've said actually makes sense to you all because I probably don't know what I'm talking about. If anyone can help me, please do! Thanks.

[da-geezer]

Find your Xbox' MAC address and force the router to assign a chosen local IP to that MAC.

Go to your router's administration page (usually 192.168.1.1 for your router), and if it's anything like my DSL-G624T, click the DHCP setting on the left hand site.

Have a looksie at the picture below:

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/9912/dhcpad2.jpg (i couldn't be arsed to size it)

In the clients list, one of them will be your xbox. Find the MAC address, and copy it. Paste it into the box i've arrowed, though change the colons to hyphens. Choose an easily rememberable IP address that you want to assign your xbox, and enter it in the second box. Whack apply, and reboot your router.

Now - even if your xbox is set to autodetect settings - every time it requests a local IP from your router, it will assign the xbox the one you've specified here.

Use this in your NAT table settings, and you'll be right.

Hope this helps.

[Kiwi Man]

Thanks, I'll try it.

When I turn on my Xbox its only ever been assigned 10.1.1.4 as the I.P. address I think, so if I can't fix this problem then I'll just forward ports to that address and hopefully the Xbox will continue to get assigned that one. The only thing then is that 10.1.1.4 might also be the address given to my computer when I plug that back in I guess.

EDIT: Damn. My router doesn't seem to have anything about MAC addresses.

EDIT 2: Okay, I finally worked it out. I think. I was able to set my 360's I.P. manually without the DNS error when I forwarded the ports before setting the I.P. So everything seems to be working but my NAT's still strict.

After playing on Live for a while I checked the NAT rules on my router again. Here are some screenshots of the details incase I've done something wrong:

Rule 2 Details Rule 2 Stats

Rule 3 Details Rule 3 Stats

I notice in rule 3 there's no record of 'inbound' or 'outbound packets' or anything, so does this mean that the rule hasn't been used or something? Because I think it should have been if that's the case.

Gar I'm a noob.

[Youlikeyams?]

Type/Rule 3 NAT is the most restrictive type of NAT - I've had similar problems with my PS3.
What I've found as a good (although imperfect) solution is to put whatever IP address you console is using in the router's DMZ, which gives whichever IP is there unrestricted access to the internet (have a look at your router's settings to find the DMZ option). That's usually helped with any problems I've had with NAT. There's probably a better help out there but this works OK for me.

[Kiwi Man]

Cool thanks, a guy on live also said to do that.

Oh, I'm reading the original guide I was using, (which I got from the Bungie.net forums, not portforward.com,) and it actually has a few more ports listed on it than the portforward.com guide. I'll try opening those too, but from what I've heard, that DMZ option is probably the way to go as long as the forwarding doesn't work.

Thanks for your help everyone.

EDIT: Okay, port forwarding doesn't seem to work at all now, the DNS error keeps happening, but the DMZ thing worked.

I've taken a few screenshots of details on my computer so if I've done anything that will endanger my computer could someone please tell me?



As far as I can tell, my computer's I.P. address is static at 10.1.1.9, my 360's is static at 10.1.1.255, and the DMZ rule applies to the Xbox only at the I.P. address 10.1.1.255. Also, if anything else was to be connected to the internet and assigned an I.P. address, it would never get 10.1.1.255 because that is outside of the DHCP range.

So basically am I right in saying that nothing I've done can affect the security of anything other than the Xbox?

Thanks.

I don't know if this matters, but I forgot to save and reboot my modem after deleting the old NAT rules and adding the DMZ one, so will that make a difference? Everything seems to be as I want it to be...