Port forwarding question while gateway is not the router

[xiaolin]

@dlakelan

So if your subnet is say 192.168.1.0/24 then any device on your LAN trying to talk to say 192.168.1.33 will simply send a packet direct to 192.168.1.33 with no machine in the middle.

So for the port forwarding services who is the gateway is not quite important right?(Beacuse package from outside have already been processed by the route to change everything to LAN addresses) Package is simply sent to the device by route and sent back to route directly by device.

[dlakelan]

@xiaolin

sent back to route directly by device.

No from the LAN device it sees a packet FROM xx.yy.zz.qq TO 192.168.1.4 for example, but it wants to send back FROM 192.168.1.4 TO xx.yy.zz.qq which is an internet address, so it sends to the gateway who is responsible to change it to FROM wan.ip.goes.here TO xx.yy.zz.qq . This is why your system doesn't work... because you are not using your WAN router as your gateway. So the packets come IN ok, but they don't go back OUT ok.

[xiaolin]

OK I'm now have a much more clear understanding on how does route work.

Thanks a lot for you patience.