PS3/Playstation Network inbound ports

[Rammie]

Kinda off-topic, I know, and I apologize in advance, but does anyone know the basic Playstation Network inbound port mapping for your common-or-garden home router? I'm getting desperate and my son is driving me bananas because he keeps getting errors with online games on his PS3. Regrettably, most gamers know zilch about networking and either recommend DMZ mapping or blanket port mapping of vast areas of the port range. Both result in a home network crippled for any other shared devices and/or dangerously insecure. Obviously, outbound ports are never a problem because most routers are transparent to outbound connectivity. Inbound ports are rather more critical and need to be identified accurately. I'm getting heartily fed up of sifting through write-ups that drone on about how to program the router (I'm Cisco trained...) or which completely fail to distinguish between outbound and inbound paths (blanket port mapping). Has anyone got this sorted in terms that I would understand? The game of the week, by the way, is Destiny and I'm fairly sure I've got Destiny's port mapping correct, because Bungie themselves have explained it properly (thank goodness...)

[OB1]

Not sure if you've seen this.

PSN itself uses 80, 443 and 5223 TCP. In/outbound is unspecified, I would assume outbound as it's effectively a pretty webmail / updates service.

Games are wont to use whatever ports the developer has seen fit, and it varies from game to game. I had all sorts of fun getting online play on Gran Turismo 5 working...

Bear in mind, Destiny was only launched last week. PSN is going to be under a lot of stress, so it could just be dropouts from their end.

[tmcd35]

Does your router support UPNP? If so it might be worth making sure it's switched on. The PS3 uses UPNP to ask the router to open ports as required.

[Rammie]

OB1: yes, I've seen that information and copies of it repeated ad infinitum. It's too vague - this is precisely the kind of indistict garbage I'm trying to improve on. Saying that PSN "USES" a port is not enough. I find it hard to believe it uses ports 80 and 443 for INCOMING traffic and I'm very sceptical about letting it do that anyway, not to mention conflicting with my other systems. Port 5223 - I dunno, could be, but what's it used for? I appeciate your comments about Destiny being launched so recently - an excellent point. Bungie have already posted a networking patch to fix a lot of "centipede" errors, so evidently they have some networking stuff to learn too. Interestingly, we encountered a show-stopping error because the second DNS address wasn't populated through DHCP. Wierd - clearly someone hasn't read the RFCs properly.

 

As for UPNP, that's a significant security risk. You can't target it at one device, all your devices will have access to it. PC Trojans exist that have UPNP functionality and, if you get infected, will automatically open incoming ports to blitz your network. In other words, a firewall with a prominent switch to turn it off - what a stupid idea. Do I want to do this? No thank you!

Edited September 17, 2014 by Rammie

[tmcd35]

Games are wont to use whatever ports the developer has seen fit, and it varies from game to game. I had all sorts of fun getting online play on Gran Turismo 5 working...

 

This is your ultimate problem. The way I see it you have 4 choices...

 

1. DMZ
   
2. UPNP
   
3. Give PS3 fixed IP and open every port to that IP
   
4. Call developer of each game and ask them which ports they've used
   

[Rammie]

I see more than four choices.

 

1. DMZ - no chance! Zero security.

2. UPNP - compromises security for entire home network.

3. Pretty much identical to 1.

4. Not really practical and Sony completely ignore users anyway.

5. Use WireShark to analyse traffic.

6. Open ports one by one and find out what works and what doesn't.

7. Persevere with Internet search in the hope of finding someone who's already done 5.

[tmcd35]

Lol, I play games to get away from my day job! Happy to pay the Taiwanese Mafia to release access to my laptop, got the monthly DD setup for them and everything