hi im in dire need of help here. i have a belkin router and i want to make a garrys mod server(a modification for halflife 2). i hit create servers and when i get all setup noone can join because they get a message saying server not responding and it cant be fiund on the server lists. please help im desperate

im anoob at networking but i believe its called port forwarding

You need to forward the appropriate port to the IP address of your server. www.portforward.com Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina! www.redcross.org

hi im a total newb so could u explain in laymans terms.

You are able to connect to multiple computers using different programs (web surfing, email server, instant messaging, etc.) at the same time because of networking ports. When you receive an incoming connection however, there's no way for your machine to intuitively know what that traffic is - email, instant messaging, etc. Therefore, applications standardize on a particular port. For example, web surfing connections hit web servers on port 80, sending email is port 25, etc. Your router has a firewall in it that blocks all network traffic originating from the outside coming in. Being that you want people to connect to your server, they are originating the connection. Your router blocks it. In order for the connection to get to your computer, the router needs a rule to tell it "all traffic on port ___ go to the following IP address ______________." You need two pieces of information then. A. Half Life 2 traffic's port number. Go to portforward.com for that info. B. The IP address of the computer you're hosting the game on. Go to start - run - cmd, then run ipconfig to get the IP address. All you have to do then is consult your router's documentation on how to do port forwarding for your particular router. portforward.com probably has a guide for your router as well. Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina! www.redcross.org