[tzyr6]

Basically, my xbox 360 will not play online games because the NAT is too strict. I've read online that I need to open a couple of ports to play but don't know how to do that. If anyone could give me some help or point me in the right direction I would be very grateful.

-my setup= DSL modem connected to airport, ethernet cable from airport goes to my mini but I connect to the 360 when I want to play.

[ibook_steve]

Welcome to our forums!

I don't know what "NAT is too restrictive" means, but NAT has nothing to do with a connection problem like this. I don't know how it works with a 360, but you may need to set up port forwarding on the router to forward any packets meant for the 360 to it based on the port number(s), which you mention.

Though somehow I doubt even Microsoft would make it this complicated. But I'm sure someone else who owns a 360 can prove me wrong.

Steve

[Dakar V]

I've done this on my Time Capsule. His terminology about NAT is accurate as far as the what the Xbox will tell you on a connection check.

I think this is the best explanation you'll find while using an Airport.

[ibook_steve]

So Microsoft does make it more complicated than it should be. What a shock!



Anyway, I was confused because NAT stands for network address translation, which simply means that the router translates connections from your "internal" network address, usually 192.168.x.x, into the "external" IP address given to your DSL/cable modem for transmission over the Internet.

Port forwarding forwards incoming data packets to specific machines on your "internal" (LAN) network for particular applications and really has nothing to do with NAT other than knowing which LAN IP address to forward to. For example, if you have a web server on your LAN, any incoming packet labeled with port 80 should be forwarded to that server.

The link to the Apple discussion gives good info.

Steve

[Dakar V]

As a note, you'll now you've succeeded on the NXE connection check if it doesn't mention NAT at all.