StarCraft / Broodwar (English Version)

Welcome to the english version of the page "StarCraft / Broodwar" of my website. This version does not translate all the content of the german version. If you want to have a whole translation, try any automatic translator from the web or use your German knowlegde, if you have any.

Router Problem

To host a game behind a router

It is a common problem, to create and host a game on Battle.net for the Blizzard games like StarCraft / BroodWar or Warcraft III. You will find anywhere the advice to open (forward the port to your own computer in your LAN and if you have any personal firewall, don't forget to open it there) the ports 6112 for StarCraft, 4000 for Diablo II and one port between 6112 and 6119 for Warcraft III (in Warcraft II, you can specify the port). I have also tried them, but no one can enter my created games on Battle.net.

Update 20.02.06: I have solved the problem and can host a game with Warcraft III behind my Netgear router and the Windows XP firewall (no third party personal firewall installed). In addition to open the port 6112 (or other, see above), try also to open/forward one more port to your own computer in your LAN. What port? I have used the command-line tool called netstat, which is pre-installed by Windows. With this tool, I could see, that Warcraft III establishes some connections on a random port with a Battle.net-Server. I also set Warcraft III on the whitelist for the Windows XP firewall and now I may create Warcraft III games on Battle.net and other players can connect to my game. So try it out yourself, perhaps I will solve also your router problem.

Step-by-step instructions: In addition to the 6112 port, you have to forward one port, Warcraft III uses for the connection with Battle.net.

Start Warcraft III and connect to Battle.net.
While youare connected to Battle.net, return to Windows (ALT+TAB) and start the command line prompt. Start > run: cmd (Win NT/2k/XP) or command (Win 95/98/ME).
Type "netstat" (without double quotes) on the prompt and hit enter.
You get some lines as return and one line looks like "TCP mypc:2122 host-xxx.battle.net:6112 CONNECTED", where "mypc" is your computer's name and xxx any number. The number behind the colon after your computer's name (here: 2122) is the local port, which is used for the connection to a Battle.net-server.
Now, you have to forward this port to your own computer in your LAN on the router.
If you don't know your own IP in your LAN, you can get it, by typing "ipconfig" (without double quotes) on the prompt and hit enter.
To quit the prompt, type exit.

Note: By every new connection to Battle.net, another random port is used, so you have to change it everytime, you connect to Battle.net. Otherwise you can only join games, created by other players.

I didn't try it out with StarCraft, but both are games from Blizzard and I think they have the same problem, so you can also try this out for other Blizzard games.
If you have questions or suggestions, please feel free to e-mail me. You will find my e-mail address at Kontakt (english: contact). All other pages are only available in German.

Here is another website (in english), which provides step-by-step instructions for port forwarding on a lot of different routers: Externer Link http://www.portforward.com.