Port Forwarding on the Ooredoo Fibre Home Gateway

Many applications require certain ports to be opened on your home router to properly work. Perhaps you’re running a game server that needs to be exposed to the internet, or a web server on port 80. To allow the outside internet access, you will need to configure port forwarding. This tutorial will use the Ooredoo Fibre Home Gateway (EchoLife HG8247) – but it should apply to practically every Huawei router with minimal differences.

Step 1: Login to the router:

I have already written a complete article on how to gain access to the Ooredoo Gateway. But to quickly summarize (if you need more help, visit the link) – do the following:

• Navigate to http://192.168.100.1
• Input the following: user: admin password: admin
• Click login.

You should now find yourself on this page if you successfully logged in:

Step 2: Locate the Port Forwarding utility:

• Step 1: Click “Forward Rules”
• Step 2: Click “Port Mapping Configuration”
• Step 3: Click “New”

Upon clicking “New”, multiple options will now appear – this is where the port forwarding rule will be configured.

Step 3: Configure the Port Forwarding rule:

For the purposes of this tutorial, we will be configuring an SSH port forwarding rule that will open up port 22. SSH is already one of the applications that have a premade profile (check the list by clicking the application dropdown shown above – top right). If your application is listed there – then the setup is extremely easy. Simply select it and make sure the WAN name selection is set to INTERNET and not IPTV or anything else. Make sure the Enable port mapping checkbox is ticked. And finally, make sure the “client” that hosts the service you’re exposing is selected in the Internal host field (either input the local IP manually or use the dropdown).

If your application is not listed on the dropdown in the step labelled 1; then click Custom and manually fill in steps 3 & 4 with the appropriate ports for your use-case. Otherwise, the other steps are exactly the same. Clicking apply will add this rule and enforce it.

Step 4: Verify that it worked:

All that is left now is to verify that our rule is being correctly enforced.

• Step 1: Navigate to WhatIsMyIP: https://www.whatismyip.com/ on the device you selected as an internal host.
• Step 2: Copy the IP address shown.
• Step 3: Navigate to IPFingerPrints: https://www.ipfingerprints.com/portscan.php and input the IP along with the desired port – then click Check Port.

And that’s it! We’re now properly configured and the application that required the port forwarding should work without any issues. If the state is anything but open, retrace your steps and verify that all the instructions were followed.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments below. I’ll be more than happy to help when I can.