Unable to sign into control panels...

[Furius92]

I have a few websites that I have administration capabilities to... in which I go to **URL HERE**/control and a popup window asks for a user name and password. I enter the correct information (it works on other computers) but it doesn't work on mine. I am running from my NIC into a Linksys Cable/DSL Router w/ firewall. I think that might be the problem. Any ideas as to how to fix this? Thanks

[Johan Gielen]

Give your IP full access, so the firewall won't mind activity coming from your PC to the outside.....

[Furius92]

Well, the router is hardware, there is no software from it that is installed on your PC. So I have no control over it from my PC, and there doesn't seem to be any control settings on the actual router. It is a hardware firewall, not something like ZoneAlarm.

[mairving]

You could try bypassing the router just to make sure that it is the firewall. I would say that there is a 90% chance that it is. What kind/brand of router is it?

[Furius92]

It is a 4 port Linksys Etherfast Cable/DSL router. It IS the router, but is there a way to disable its firewall?

[mairving]

You will probably need to have port 2082 open (although it depends upon your host, if in doubt ask them). To open it on the Linksys router, type in the IP address of the router, enter the password, click on the Advanced Tab, click on the Forwarding tab. Here is Linksys explanation of Forwarding:

Forwarding Port forwarding sets up public services on your network. When users from the Internet make certain requests of your network, the router will forward those requests to the appropriate computer. The router's DHCP function must be disabled to use Forwarding. Forwarding is generally used to set up a webserver, ftp server, or e-mail server on your network. To add a server using Forwarding: Enter the port number used by the server. On the same line, enter the IP Address of the server that you want the Internet users to be able to access. Configure as many entries as you would like until all of the link entries are filled. Click the Apply to save the settings.

[TheOldMan]

furius92,

THe LinkSys routers have a software firewall running on them. They provide protection against INCOMING assaults but generally do not block OUTGOING ports. The LinkSys is manageable by using your web browser and pointing to the default address http://192.168.1.1. That brings up a log-in box where you would enter no user-id and a password of "admin". It doesn't sound like you've done any customization of the router so this address should be the correct one.

Generally, it is not a good idea to shut off the firewall but rather open specific ports as needed.There are a number of settings and port combinations that could be contributing to this. If you are [or have been] able to access these sites successfully without the router, then it is possible that the blocking of an incoming port is preventing the necessary challenge-response to log in. Can you provide more specific information about what security the site is using.

The Old Man

[Furius92]

So I go to forwarding, and I enter in port 2081-2082 and I ended the IP with a *. That should be for any right? Well it doesn't work... I still can't get in. It does use 2082 though, when I get access denied, it has the URL ending in :2082. Any ideas? Thanks again

[TheOldMan]

Sorry, furius92. I don't believe it works that way. As far as I know, you can not use a wild card. You need a specific address and you must disable the router's DHCP function.

But just wait. You arew getting an "Access denied" message?? Can you please provide specific details of what heppens. It sounds like you might be blocked by the web servers firewall or access restrictions! If so, we're chasing our tails here.

THe Old Man

[Furius92]

No, I was able to easily connect to it via a direct connect to my cable modem. But now I need the router because I have at least 2 PCs hooked up to it now. I have tried ending the IP 4, which is my IP adress. Doesn't work, this is with DHCP disabled. Huh, this sucks. Any more ideas?

This is what happens:

I go to then site's controlpanel via www.**URL**.com/controlpanel

A popup window appears where I enter my username and password, both are correct. I get three tries, none of which work, and then I go to a site that says "ACCESS DENIED". That's about it.

[mairving]

Check out this link for enabling a port with a Linksys router. They are opening ports for a different app but the application is still the same.

I also picked up this piece of advice on the Cpanel site:

Go to http://www.htthost.com/ and download httport.

[TheOldMan]

OK, I think I see what is happening here. With the direct connect, you have a single WAN IP address. The one that you got from your provider. Let's say it's 12.34.56.7. When you established the connection with the web server, the authentication handshaking occurred and the server knew that it was able to open a port on 12.34.56.7 so it went ok.

The Linkys do Network Address Translation (NAT) which allows you to have multiple LAN IP's in your private address space. There is still a single WAN IP but that is now used by the Linky. When you begin the handshake with the web server, your part of the dialogue is identifying the LAN IP, 192.168.1.4 as the originator. When the web server tries to open the socket with 192.168.1.4:2082, it can't do it because the Linky is blocking that address. If the web server were trying to open 12.34.56.7:2082, it would actually work once the port was forwarded. I'm not familiar enough with all the details to know if there is any way around this. Maybe someone else here will. The example mairving posted was for an application that supported using another IP address as the originator. If you look at the screwen shots, it shows that the NAT use is checked and the WAN IP is supplied for the IP address.

You can try the Port Trigger. Using the Forwarding tab in the Linky's Advanced page, click on the Port Triggering button. Give the trigger a name like CPanel and set the outgoing port range to 80 - 80 and the incoming range to 2080 - 2082. What this does is dynamically open and forward the incoming ports for the IP that makes an outgoing request on the specified port. Another thing you can try is putting your IP in the DMZ which would open your IP up to the internet effectively turning off the firewall protection for your IP.

Post back with the results.
The Old Man