Recently I implemented a Cisco IOS router at home because I got tired of the home versions just crapping out after a year or so. When I did, I noticed my Xbox Live Open NAT type went to moderate and even strict at times, making multi-player gaming pretty terrible. It took a while for me to find out some fixes online so I figured I would summarize it below for anyone else out there looking to get Xbox Live back to open NAT type.
Step 1
Create an access list for the WAN interface to allow the Xbox Live specific traffic through.
ip access-list extended Xbox_in
permit tcp any any eq 3074
permit udp any any eq 3074
permit udp any any eq 88
permit ip any any
Step 2
Apply the access list to the WAN interface
interface FastEthernet0/0
ip access-group Xbox_in in
Step 3
Create static NAT statements to allow the Xbox Live ports to forward to the Xbox console
ip nat inside source static tcp 192.168.1.XXX 3074 interface FastEthernet0/0 3074
ip nat inside source static udp 192.168.1.XXX 3074 interface FastEthernet0/0 3074
ip nat inside source static udp 192.168.1.XXX 88 interface FastEthernet0/0 88
Step 4
If you have the router doing DHCP, you can create a reservation for the Xbox console so you don’t need to manually assign a static to it on the console.
ip dhcp pool Xbox
host 192.168.1.XXX 255.255.255.0
client-identifier 01XX.XXXX.XXXX.XX
Fill in the X’s with the MAC address of the Xbox console. The 01 needs to stay in the front.
That should do it. As soon as configured the above I had Xbox Live Open NAT type. Leave a comment if you have any questions or need any assistance with your config.
Did you try to add another xbox (360) to your Cisco router? :D
No, only have one in my house. Config would be tough to support 2 the way I have it written here since you can’t forward the ports to 2 internal ips. Possibly would have to do a rotary type statement.