UPnP problem help/advice with router settings please

happyhero

Hi I am with Sky on their standard package but excluding the phone, for my broadband and a few months back after having trouble with my router they sent me a new one, model SR102, this one seemed to work fine at first, but a week or 2 later I found I was often disconnected and had to keep rebooting to get my connection.

I’d turn my PC on in the morning to find my router disconnected. I also found my connection was quite fast on tests but did not seem to always perform like it was, I get readings of about 8mb/s for download speed, and I am plugged into the master socket by the way.

Anyway the last few days it got terrible, I could only stay connected for a few minutes, even though I had nothing connected but my main PC with a cable. I tried swapping everything except the router as that is all I have, but tried different cables and filters and tons of resetting back to factory settings etc.

So I then decided to record what was happening and I noticed I lost my connection just after 4mins.

Often the status on my PC said connected after the 4min period but eventually said disconnected several minutes later (this bit does not seem to make full sense), but my browsers would no longer work as they saw no internet just after 4mins . I tested it by keep refreshing at the 4min mark on different browsers.

I then Googled and eventually latched onto UPNP settings, and to my amazement found UPnP was set to on and at 4min on the “ADVERTISEMENT TIME TO LIVE”, so I turned that off and then had no more trouble since.

The problem is what to do now, I Googled UPnP and see there are arguments whether to have it on or off for security reasons so I am confused what to pick.

Also do I really want to phone Sky to end up going through another lengthy test, remove this, try this, take your socket apart? etc, etc, only to end up being sent another “not the best quality” router that may have another weakness that I have to discover after lots of grief, which is of course after they have proved that I am right about the UPnP and agreed to send another one. Basically not sure what to do.

Anyway some questions if anybody can help please

1. Does anybody know why this setting is causing a problem?

2. Is there a setting within UPnP that I can change that will remove the problem (changing the minutes just changes when the problem happens)?

3. What am I likely to notice with UPnp turned off?

4.If someone comes to my house and wants to connect a mobile will it be the same as ever and just connect when I put in the network key?

5. Can I have your opinion on whether it is best to have UPnp on or off please?

6.Why is my router doing this suddenly, what is failing, is it slowly breaking down?

7. I have main PC cabled and tablets, laptops and second router acting as slave downstairs to boost wifi range which has Sky HD, plugged in; will it affect any of these things? (incidentally all this stuff was disconnected when I was testing what was wrong)

8. I also have an IP camera which I have never tried connecting to the new router yet as I wanted everything else to be perfect before messing with that awkward item. When I first got it, it was very fiddly to get going, I basically wanted to monitor my office when I was away on holiday. Is there likely to be any problems with setting this up?

Any help or advice appreciated.

thescouselander

Personally I've never had a router where UPnP actually worked properly. I suggest leaving it off.

JJ_Egan

UPnP off unless required is the security advice .
http://www.howtogeek.com/122487/htg-explains-is-upnp-a-security-risk/

esuhl

UPnP is a massive security vulnerability. I'd definitely recommend disabling it. Many years ago, even the FBI came out and advised users to ditch it (I'm not sure if they still offer the same advice.)

When applications need to accept incoming Internet connections, UPnP allows the router to "automatically" open ports so that incoming traffic is not firewalled. This makes it easy for home users to plug in all sorts of Internet devices and they "just work" without having to configure the router.

Of course, "automatically" opening ports willy-nilly gives an opportunity for malware to sneakily do the same... with dire consequences.

As an alternative, you can manually open the ports you require, and forward traffic to the device/machine that needs that port open. Unless you have things like media servers, games consoles, set-top boxes and don't run server software, then you can probably just disable UPnP on your router without worrying about it. Otherwise, you may need to forward ports manually.

happyhero

Any idea why it causes a problem?

esuhl

happyhero wrote: »

Any idea why it causes a problem?

In order for server software to function, it has to be able to accept unsolicited incoming traffic on a particular port. To do that manually, you'd open a port on your router and tell the router to forward the traffic to the relevant machine.

UPnP tries to open ports "intelligently". Computers don't know inherently know which software is safe, or which ports you might want to open. So (I guess) UPnP doesn't always work properly -- either it closes a port when you wanted it left open, or lets malware/hackers tell it to open ports that you don't want open at all.

It's a bit like having thousands of locked doors on the outside of your house. You tell the postman to collect a parcel from door 995. The manual way to let him in is to unlock the door when you're expecting him, and lock it again when he leaves.

Or you can give your keys to a house robot that doesn't know who you might be expecting to call, who should collect the parcel, etc. Then you could hand over every key for every door, and just let the robot get on with it. That's what UPnP does.