Port Forwarding

When hosting a server on a home network port forwarding or tunneling is required in order to direct traffic to the host computer. One way to think of it is that when there are multiple devices (e.g. computers and phones) connected to the LAN, the outside internet does not know which device is the Unturned server. In this case port forwarding specifies which LAN device is the host.

Two pieces of information: the port range and local device address are required prior to port forwarding, and are described in detail below.

Port Range

Each Unturned server uses two consecutive ports while running. The first is for server list queries, and the second for in-game traffic.

By default 27015 and 27016 are used. Setting a different value with the Port command uses that value and plus one. Recommended Port command settings are 27015 for the first server, 27017 for the second server, 27019 for the third server, so on and so forth.

Local Device Address

Forwarding the ports directs them to a LAN address, i.e. the computer hosting the server. To determine the local IP on Windows:

  1. Press Windows + R to open the Run dialog.

  2. Type cmd and press enter.

  3. Type ipconfig in the command prompt and press enter.

  4. Find the Wireless LAN adapter Wi-Fi or Ethernet adapter Ethernet header.

  5. Look for the IPv4 Address value and make note of it. This is the local address to forward the ports to. It likely looks something like 192.168.0.6.

How to Forward Ports

Instructions vary by router, but should be doable from the web browser without any extra tools or software. This third-party website has a thorough list of routers with simple steps for each model: https://portforward.com/router.htm

In general the steps are along the lines of:

  1. Connect to router via web browser.

  2. Login with home admin credentials.

  3. Find Port Forwarding menu.

  4. Find the option to add a new rule.

  5. Name the new rule something related to Unturned for reference.

  6. Input 27015 as the starting port(s) and 27016 as the ending port(s).

Note

On some routers it might not be possible to input multiple ports within a single rule. In that case multiple rules can be setup; one for each of the two ports.

  1. Enable UDP protocol.

  2. Set destination internal IP to the local host address.

  3. Save the new rule.

Tunneling

Alternatively, rather than port forwarding, it is possible to use third party service like playit.gg to tunnel connections to the server. Unturned is unaffiliated with playit.gg. Their service is free and supported by the purchase of custom domains / dedicated IPs. They submitted these instructions:

To create a tunnel for Unturned using playit.gg:

  1. Create a custom tunnel with port type TCP+UDP

  2. For port count, enter 2

  3. Leave everything else as the default and create the tunnel

  4. Find the assigned port for your tunnel

  5. Update your server’s Commands.dat file and set Port <assigned port> (replace <assigned port>)

  6. Connect using your playit address (something-random.at.ply.gg:<assigned port>)