WAN IP vs. External IP

Question

I am trying to set up port forwarding through my router and have been running into some problems. On my router's admin interface page, it lists my WAN IP as 10.5.50.xxx, however, if I'm not mistaken the 10.x.x.x network is a private network, meaning this IP address would not be accessible from outside my LAN.

I have all the port forwarding rules set up, and when I nmap 10.5.50.174 it lists all the ports as open that I have set to be open.

However, when I go to a site like whatsmyip.org, it tells me that I have a totally different IP address in the 75.109.x.x network. I cannot access this host in any way. When I port scan it, it says that the FTP, SSH, and Telnet ports are all open, however when I try to connect to it using any of these methods they are all refused.

So what can I do to find my actual external IP address that is accessible from the Internet and set up port forwarding?

I should add that I am using a Belkin router/modem combo (the model is F9K1105v01) and my ISP is Suddenlink.

Answer 1

Some ISPs use private ranges (10.x.x.x) to setup the link between ISP and the customer which is the case in your scenario. Also, you must have a public IP range assigned to you by your ISP in case you want incoming services to your network. The IP address you see on whatsmyip.org is the NAT IP you get from your ISP (in case you don't have public IP ranges assigned to you) which you wont be able to connect to from outside. This is what I can understand from the given information so far. One more thing that you should consider checking is the proper configuration on your router and whether it was configured properly to accept incoming connections. Your point on that you see the ports open on the public IP might be open services i your ISP device that has the NAT IP you get. You should contact your ISP to get a better understanding on how to setup your incoming services.

Answer 2

1. check your real public IP with this site: http://whatismyipaddress.com/ we call it PubIP
2. in your router settings make sure to forward ports on your LOCAL IP (if you are right 10.5.50.174). I suggest you to use a static ip address anyway.
3. do you have a FTP SERVER running on your machine? is it running on default port?
4. if above answers are both yes, just use a computer outside your LAN and point to PubIP:21 and you should connect.