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[Sensei]

In short, is there any way I can do what the thread title says? My IT knowledge is very limited. I would like to host servers for various games to play with my friend, since there isn't any other way to get a private match going. For example, I know I can just start a game of, say, Orcs Must Die or Castle Crashers and host a game (or are there public servers doing this?) without setting anything up. But for other games (in question: Trackmania 2, Killing Floor, Supreme Commander, Minecraft) where I'm expected to be able to forward ports to my computer, is there a way to host them?

I'm currently in a dorm, so I'm behind a router, but don't have admin access to it. Should a virtual local network or something be able to solve this task? I've briefly tried Hamachi, but never got to use it because my friend's internet cuts off entirely when Hamachi is running on their computer.

[freeformschooler]

Tried Tunngle? I hear that's like Hamachi but without the whole "getting worse every update" thing.

[Sensei]

I'll try that. It's a little annoying that most games need specific fixes, but at least the wiki is pretty straightforward.

Edit: Experience with Tunngle so far: Requires lots of extra setup, and after following instructions, Trackmania 2 now crashes hard whether or not Tunngle is running. Yaaaaay. I will keep banging my head against Tunngle but other solutions would be appreciated.

[LordSlowpoke]

Comodo unite is pretty nice, and free. Bit of a mess when you try to invite someone the first time but after that it's easy.

[freeformschooler]

Well shoot. What are your options in terms of getting your friends to host instead? Opening a port is really easy as long as they can get into the admin panel on their router.

You might also want to ask the school's IT department about this. With college students, I can't imagine it's a rare desire. They might be able to set something up for you or at least explain how their network works and why you can/can't host that way.

Also found this old thread on the MC forums that seems to be a weird hack for getting non-upnp games working with upnp (which castle crashers uses to "just work"). Might not be relevant, but who knows?

[Sensei]

I'll give Comodo a look. The Trackmania 2 crash I was getting with Tunngle seems related to the LAN-fix mod I had to install to get Trackmania and Tunngle to get along- removing the new ManiaPlanet.exe that came in that mod and replacing it with the old one allows Trackmania to run- but still no Tunngle access as far as I can tell.

As much as I consider myself to be relatively ignorant about IT, my friend is doubly so, and getting them to even forward ports will be a challenge. The more work I can shift over to my side, the better.

I'm curious, would a service like no-ip allow me to host servers without proper port forwarding? At least for games where you can type in an IP to connect to? Sadly this doesn't include Trackmania but it might work for Minecraft and Supreme Commander.

[freeformschooler]

I'm curious, would a service like no-ip allow me to host servers without proper port forwarding? At least for games where you can type in an IP to connect to? Sadly this doesn't include Trackmania but it might work for Minecraft and Supreme Commander.

Don't think so. It's more like... you forward port 80/25565/whatever to your local IP through the router and no-ip routes traffic through anameyouchoose.servegame.org (or some similar free subdomain) to your public IP and thus your computer. It also has an auto-updater for people with dynamic IPs. Since you can't open or forward any ports in the first place, that's a bit problematic.

I should note that you can use Teamviewer to view your friends' desktops and open ports on their router, given they have the password (?) for getting in lying around somewhere. I did this for a few of my less port-forward-competent friends recently. Teamviewer doesn't require port forwarding, either, which is nice.

[quinnr]

I'll give Comodo a look. The Trackmania 2 crash I was getting with Tunngle seems related to the LAN-fix mod I had to install to get Trackmania and Tunngle to get along- removing the new ManiaPlanet.exe that came in that mod and replacing it with the old one allows Trackmania to run- but still no Tunngle access as far as I can tell.

As much as I consider myself to be relatively ignorant about IT, my friend is doubly so, and getting them to even forward ports will be a challenge. The more work I can shift over to my side, the better.

I'm curious, would a service like no-ip allow me to host servers without proper port forwarding? At least for games where you can type in an IP to connect to? Sadly this doesn't include Trackmania but it might work for Minecraft and Supreme Commander.

In short, no. No-IP simply replaces your changing IP address with a constant domain. You can use Hamachi, or an equivalent, and some programs use Universal Plug and Play (but that can be disabled on the router, and not everything supports it). You can try a work around using UPnP called Port Mapper, but I haven't tried that. (http://upnp-portmapper.sourceforge.net/). 

[Sensei]

I'll keep trying VPNs, if I can't get one that works for both me and my friend I'll see if I can get UPnP port forwarding to work.

[Sensei]

If anyone's curious, I ended up using Evolve. Since it's actually working very nicely and doesn't involve downloading an assload of mods for every game, I find it to be much better than Tunngle.

[gogis]

Ask your provider for direct IP. I mean real IP, straight to your rig. Usually providers hide your machine under the NAT, so you need to do a some work here. I have no idea how this works in western world, but I always had this option (for extra fee of course)
Once you have direct IP, you can host any games which asks for IP to join.

[freeformschooler]

Ask your provider for direct IP. I mean real IP, straight to your rig. Usually providers hide your machine under the NAT, so you need to do a some work here. I have no idea how this works in western world, but I always had this option (for extra fee of course)
Once you have direct IP, you can host any games which asks for IP to join.

He doesn't have that kind of access. He's in a dorm. 

Glad you were able to work Evolve.

[Sensei]

Usually providers hide your machine under the NAT

That's funny, sounds like your providers out there act like one big local network?

But yeah, what FFS said. So far I haven't had any problems running any of the games I've wanted to run with Evolve, so all is well.

[gogis]

Usually providers hide your machine under the NAT

That's funny, sounds like your providers out there act like one big local network?

Exactly. And its right thing to do. Say you have 100 addresses available and you have 1000 customers. NAT is an only answer. Whats weird about that?
And I dont get dorm commentary. How is dorm even connected to provider? I suppose our internetz works totally other ways

Ok I will try to elaborate. If I move somewhere. Whatever somewhere. I check bunch of local ISP, and then I chose the one I like most. They concurrent with each other so you can always to cut a better deal, fitting your needs. Including direct IP

[freeformschooler]

Generally speaking, in a dorm, you do not have access to the router settings. You also do not choose the ISP because you live in the school, not at your own place. You just operate under whatever Internet access the university gives you, and they definitely aren't going to let you forward any ports on their network.

To get Direct IP, he would have to go through not only the provider but the university's network administrator, and I've very rarely heard of uni netadmins allowing that kind of thing...