Accessing my QNAP drive via a BT Home Hub

[4inthemorning]

I have broadband access via a BT Home Hub. The broadband connection has a dynamic IP but I use no-ip to provide me with a domain name which will find its way back to me. With that setup I can use http://myservername.no-ip.biz to see my router or RDP to myservername.no-ip.biz to see my main server. That worked well.

I have then added a TS-212P drive to my network. I have gone through the setup on that and the QNAP has a dynamic IP on my network. Having gone through the setup I can use http://myqnapdrive.myqnapcloud.com and see my qnap drive. I an still use RDP to get to my server on myservername.no-ip.biz. However if I use http://myservername.no-ip.biz I now see the qnap drive and not my router.

Now I restart the QNAP drive and it is assigned a new IP. Now I can no longer use http://myqnapdrive.myqnapcloud.com to see my qnap drive or http://myservername.no-ip.biz to see my router.

Looking at my router there are no obvious port mappings part from 3389 mapped to my server for RDP. If I add a mapping on port 80 to the QNAP that has no effect.

Why did adding QNAP break web access to my router?
Why did changing the QNAP IP break external web access to the QNAP?
How is this doing its mapping given that it has added no port mappings to my router?

but mostly how do I make this work? I want web access to the router, web access to my qnap drive and RDP access to my server. I can use alternate port numbers for the web access to the router if necessary.

[schumaku]

Why did adding QNAP break web access to my router?

Because of the UPnP IGD (Automatic Router Configuration) managed to capture the port 80/TCP from the router.

Why did changing the QNAP IP break external web access to the QNAP?

No idea - might depend on some sequence, the typical can of worms of these consumer CPE, ... There can be only one door with the same number, ie. 80/TCP for the Web Server as you have only one public IPv4 address assigned by BT to the WAN or Internet interface.

How is this doing its mapping given that it has added no port mappings to my router?

Already mentioned above - because of the UPnP IGD (Automatic Router Configuration) managed to forward the port 80/TCP from the router to the NAS LAN IP address. Blame this consumer garbage not indicating the UPnP IGD forwarded ports, having UPnP IGD control enabled by default, ... complain to BT.

but mostly how do I make this work?

Start with assigning fixed IP configurations - either by receiving the MAC <-> LAN IP on the router DHCP server for the Windows system, for the NAS, ... [this is the preferred way], or by manually configuring NAS LAN interface WIndows system LAN interface, ...

Consider to disable UPnP port forwarding on the BT box, and manually manage the port forwarding(s) you need.

If you need the NAS Web Server exposed on a standard port 80/TCP (what can make sense i.e. to serve a Web page), relocate the BT box admin port. But also here, you should use a secure channel for the BT box remote management (not plain text http on port 80/TCP).

Please be aware there are various BT Home Hub versions and variants in the field. Check with a BT or U.K. specific forum for assistance if you can't get it to work as you need.

[4inthemorning]

Consider to disable UPnP port forwarding on the BT box, and manually manage the port forwarding(s) you need.

Ta. That did the trick. Tucked away under three levels of menu was a UPnP option, enabled by default, which I never knew existed. Disable that and things spring back to life. I'll set up manual port mappings for everything but relocate the home hub port to something other than 80 as that is probably easier than moving the NAS and they'll fight if I don't move one of them. The port mappings on the home hub seems to suggest that it can handle the NAS having a dynamic address so I'll leave it on DHCP for the moment and test.

Thanks again.

[4inthemorning]

and interestingly I have now, 12 hours later than a public forum gave a correct answer, got an answer from QNAP support. Of course their answer is completely incorrect and wouldn't fix anything but they tried