Unable to forward port 80

[Yellow-Banana]

I was with Plusnet but they moved me over to EE a few weeks ago. I was sent a new router:

EE Hub Manager

• Product code: SH31B
• Firmware version: r4.26.3-R-1923144-PROD-83002
• GUI version: 3.14.5

I have a Synology NAS which I access from outside the home over HTTPS. The SSL certificate is provided by Let's Encrypt, and to renew the certificate, port 80 must be open and forwarded to the NAS. All was well until today, when the certificate expired and the NAS attempted to renew it.

It all worked fine with my Plusnet router, but forwarding port 80 does not work with the EE Hub Manager. The NAS uses UPnP to set port forwarding rules on the router. This works for all my other required ports, but it fails to set up and verify forwarding of port 80. If I go to the router's UI and forward port 80 manually, it is then listed along with all the other ports as a forwarded port, but it doesn't actually get forwarded. For example, if I go to an open port check tool, it says port 80 is closed.

There are some other threads on this forum complaining about this, but not all have the same router, and I couldn't find a solution.

I'm not going to do a factory reset, since I've only recently set up the router from factory condition, and I know from experience that a factory reset never solves anything, and it just wastes a couple of hours while you have to set everything up all over again.

Unbelievably, I telephoned EE support and was told that they do not provide technical support for port forwarding! This is EE, which is part of BT. I expected first class technical support, not this.

Does anyone know how to get port forwarding of port 80 working on a EE Hub Manager? Product code SH31B.

Thanks in advance.

[Yellow-Banana]

Hi @JimM11 ,

I did ask the support person whether I could use my own router, if they could provide the WAN password, but all he could say was that they recommend that people use the EE router. Of course, he would say that. That was on his script.

A bit like Hi-Fi separates compared to the old music centre, I'm tempted to use my own components (modem + router + switch + Wi-Fi access point) at some point. Maybe build my own router from a little fanless PC with two Ethernet ports. Anyway, that's for the future.

We don't require the landline. It was there, but like everyone else these days, we just pick up our mobile phone and use that instead.

[JimM11]

@Yellow-Banana All you need is here, connection depends on copper/fibre for the modem stage.

How Do I Use My Own Router for EE Home Broadband? | Broadband Help | EE

[Yellow-Banana]

Thanks, but as already mentioned, I'm going back to Plusnet, activation date mid-September.

[XRaySpeX]

Yes, EE does allow the use of 3rd-party routers. However they may only investigate any issues unless you put the supplied EE router back. In Using & Configuring a Third Party Router you'll find everything you need to set up your router incl. the BB PPPoE creds. which are now the same as BT's.

[JimM11]

@Yellow-Banana Smart move.

[Yellow-Banana]

That makes sense, but if you've decided to use your own equipment because EE technical support leaves everything to be desired, who cares? You are on your own, and probably better off for that.

[bobpullen]

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@Yellow-Banana wrote:

There are a whole bunch of UPnP rules listed. Some are created by the NAS, as expected, and some are created by Tailscale.

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Then the best suggestion I have is in the thread I linked to. Unsure if you're willing to accommodate though as you seem reluctant to factory reset the router.

Assuming your NAS has a static 192.168.1.x IP configured that isn't dependent on the router assigning one (if it doesn't, then configure it with one).

• Unplug all local devices from the router (you can leave it connected to the ONT) and factory reset it.
• Using a single device (that does not create UPnP rules), log into the Hub Manager and create the port 80 rule (and any others that you might need to manually create). Use the option to specify an IP address, rather than choose from the pre-populated device drop-down.
• Plug everything back in/reconnect everything (this will presumably re-create any UPnP rules but lower in the list than the port 80 rule you have created)
• Re-check the situation.

Another option would be to factory reset in a similar way but completely disable UPnP under the advanced firewall settings. If you go this route, then you'll need to create all of your required port forwarding rules manually.

I assume there is actually something on the NAS listening on port 80? An online port checker will only return a positive result if there is. Can you get to the NAS locally from another device on your network using http://<ip_addr_of_nas>:80

[Yellow-Banana]

The Synology NAS uses various ports for various services. To obtain a certificate from Let's Encrypt, port 80 needs to be forwarded to the NAS. Most of the services of interest to me (Note Station, Drive, etc.) use port 5001 for HTTPS, which of course requires a valid certificate.

Since the NAS is also part of my Tailnet, I can access the NAS itself by its IP address (on port 5001) even from outside the house, but Synology applications running on my laptop, desktop, or phone, require HTTPS access to the NAS to synchronize data, and this has stopped working since the certificate expired.

I understand what you are saying about the order of port forwarding rules. If I can get myself psyched up enough to do a factory reset, I'll see if that works, but since I'm not at the property, and won't be until I go live again with Plusnet, it will be a minefield to attempt to factory reset and set it up again remotely using Tailscale.