User Manual TP-Link ‎ARCHER AX21 Smart WiFi Router

What is Port Forwarding?

Port forwarding is a way of making your router use a specific port to communicate with certain devices. By setting a specific port for your devices, you are telling your router to always accept requests for those ports and forward data to a device’s private IP address.

In order to understand port forwarding, it helps to understand a little about how routers work first. Your router’s job is to transmit an internet signal to all your devices over a local area network (LAN). To do this, your router assigns each device in your LAN its own local IP address. For example, your computer will have a private IP address like 192.168.0.2 or 10.0.0.2

Then, on top of that, the applications and services on each device are also assigned a port number. For example, an application on your computer will have an IP address with a port number attached like 192.168.0.2:80 or 10.0.0.2:80.

With this unique IP address and port number, your router knows which program or service to send information to. This lets you and others access devices and programs on your LAN over a wide area network (WAN).

Please follow the steps based on your model and web UI to forward ports on your router.



Case 1: For TL-WR840N, TL-WR940N, Archer C20, Archer C50, etc.

Case 2: For Archer AX10, Archer C7, Archer AX6000, Archer A9, etc.

Case 3: For Archer A8, Archer AX55, Archer AX90, Archer AX11000, etc.

Please follow the steps below for troubleshooting port forwarding failures on a TP-Link router.

Step 1: Make sure the server is accessible from the internal network

You will want to double-check the IP address and the port number of the server. Check if you can access that server in the local network. If you are unable to access the server in your local network, please check the settings of your server.

Step 2: Check the port forwarding settings in the router.

Step 3: Check the firewall setting

Windows firewall will block the connection from the different subnet, and it will divide the difference according to the network location you have chosen. You may refer to Tip 2.

Step 4: Pay attention to the WAN IP address in the status page

If there are still problems, please check the WAN IP of the router. Verify the router is getting a public IP address. If it is a private IP address, which means it's not enough to only open port on the TP-Link, you have to do the same setting on the modem router as well. You may refer to the Tip1 to check WAN IP.

But for the CG-NAT ISP: Comporium and Direct link - radio service, provide the customer a private IP, that will cause you can’t use the OpenVPN or port forwarding and affect the NAT Type. You can contact the ISP and ask them to offer a Statis IP address.

Step 5: Check the IP setting on the client

Some devices need to set static IP on the Internet setting. So the correct IP setting is necessary. The IP should be the same subnet as the router, and the gateway on the client’s setting should be the router’s LAN IP address.

If it is possible, we suggest you use DHCP to get IP from the router directly.





Tip 1: How to check the WAN IP address?

Tip 2: How to change the Network Location for the clients?

Note:

WAN IP should be a public IP address. The WAN IP is assigned dynamically by ISP. If the WAN IP address of the router is not a public IP address, but a private IP address, that means there is another NAT device connected to the WAN port of the router. You need to open the service ports on that device as well.

For most of the 4G LTE router, the internet service provider usually gives the private IP Address. So, if you want to do the port forwarding, please contact your internet service provider to assign you a public IP address or do the port forwarding in their part.

Please google if you don't know how to tell Public IP Address or Private IP Address.

Feel free to contact us if it's not working after the above steps.