Port Forwarding Problem - LaCie+FIOS Router

[haphazard]

I am having trouble configuring a LaCie Ethernet disk mini. From a w2k PC, the LaCie backup seems to work fine. From my XP PC, the backup started and transfered several MB, but ultimately hangs. The problem seems to be that the LaCie uses DPNP & Port Forwarding (21,22, 80 & 443). My router is from Verizon FIOS (Actiontek MI424-WR) and shows port forwarding for the LaCie's IP address correctly. (The actual text is "Port80 - TCP any -> 80" and Status is Active). However, the LaCie Port Forwarding Test consistently reports port 80 is blocked from BOTH PCs.

In the router logs there are at least three types of persistent errors:
1). Firewall Setup Configuration change WBM user Unknown (0.0.0.0) has changed security settings [repeated 1627 times, last time on Dec 25 19:51:31 2008]
2). Firewall Setup Configuration change WBM user Unknown (0.0.0.0) has changed security settings [repeated 5579 times, last time on Dec 25 12:21:27 2008]
3). Blocked - NAT out failed First packet in connection is not a SYN packet: TCP 192.168.1.4:443->64.26.187.144:57337 on clink0

The striking thing is the number of times that some router setting has been changed (from somewhere!), and then apparently changed back by the router in both 1) & 2). Its not clear to me if this is a change from inside or outside my network, but I suspect its the LaCie trying to keep itself visible.

3) is interesting since 192.168.1.4 is my LaCie, and port 443 is the secure web access port. I suspect that this is the message that causes the XP backup to fail.

What makes port 80 show up as blocked? Since the router seems to think its open, what am I missing? Is 443 really open?

Additional odd behavior: since adding the LaCie to the network, dns look up in particular, and web access in particular seems to get slower and slower over a period of 1-2 weeks. Cycling power on the router seems to clear this up.

(I don't see anything odd in my XP's Norton 360 to make me think it is blocking the backup).

TIA.

[guapo]

I never used LaCie so I have a question. Why is port forwarding needed at all if the transfer is totally internal or is it not internal? You may have to add an exception to the Windows Firewall list but that should be it.

[haphazard]

Interesting thought...
It has other features, like a web portal that allows secure access from outside for file sharing - and since everything is dhcp-based, that needs connections via the lacie.com web. There are also dpnp features that allow it to stream audio to local music players. Why backup should care, dunno.

Along those lines tho I went thru my Norton 360 settings and don't see any restrictions that could be causing my troubles.

Tom

[guapo]

Yes, I saw that web portal page but it shouldn't affect internal transfers. Secondly, if you have Norton running, that makes 2 firewalls that need to be adjusted. Did you look at the exceptions list in Windows firewall? Disable both of them to test the transfer.

[haphazard]

I just turned off both firewalls (scary), but the backup still didn't work.

on one hand that points to a port forwarding issue (like mode in the router that is mis-set to override forwarding of individual ports?) or just a complete foobar in the lacie (thinking about your previous comment, its interesting that there is a www access mode that works fine and shows files on the drive. Meanwhile the backup appears to work entirely on the private side of the router...and fails).

I am more and more confused and more suspicious that the drive is flakey.

Sigh.

haphazard

[guapo]

Why would the drive be flakey? You said it works fine with W2K but the XP transfer hangs. Look at the event viewer for errors on the XP machine.

[GroundZero3]

For accessing anything on the network locally, you dont need to do anything port forwarding wise. Something else on your network is making the xp machine hang.

[haphazard]

I think this saga is at the end. Over the weekend, the backup behavior of both the XP and the W2k PC turned to total failure. Next, access to the unit thru the LaCie web (which is how you administer it) went from working fine to requiring a fresh login after any click (and always returning to the initial page).

At this point, I think the unit has lost it, and I am going to ask for a repair.

So, not a networking issue at all, only a hw/sw problem.

Thanks for the help and the forced thinking into the operation - removing some of the magic.

Tom

[guapo]

I'm sorry to hear it took a dive. I still don't understand the concept of a local backup over the net.

[haphazard]

Guapo,

I think there is LESS here than it seems.

The actual backup, as groundzero3 says, is purely local to my network. So by one method or another, the backup app on my pc finds the drive on the local network and does its thing. The convenience this offers is being able to backup multiple pcs without having to carry a USB drive around to each one. (there's a speed/convenience trade off here clearly).

The other nice thing is that the drive has a connection to the wan so I can do a local copy to put stuff on it that you can access. Control of access is orchestrated thru the LaCie web which (apparently) keeps up with the ip address/port of the drive no matter what dhcp addess it has today. In addition, the LaCie site allows me access to the whole drive from anywhere which is a good thing.

So, as I understand it, a pure backup drive would be purely local thing. The remote access features are the value-add that needs the port forwarding & stuff.

(There is another level of stuff like music streaming to a player on my network that is still in the mostly-magic category, for me).

Tom