Can't ping my Pepwave Max BR1 Mini or use port forwarding

Product Discussion Pepwave MAX
1

In the process of trying port forwarding, I also tried pinging my Pepwave from a computer on a different mobile network. Neither works, what are the first things I should be trying? I searched online and some people got it working by disabling and re-enabling ICMP Ping, or switching HealthCheck to Ping 8.8.8.8, but no joy. I also tried Factory resets and updating the firmware, no better results. My firmware is 8.2.0 build 5167

I should add that both Ping and Port forward work inside the Pepwave network (LAN side), but not outside (Wan side). I confirmed this by using the Pepwave broadband IP assigned by Verizon.

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Its very likely that you don’t have a dedicated public IP that allows for inbound routing of traffic.
Most cellular networks use Carrier Grade NAT (CGNAT) which blocks inbound traffic but lets multiple devices share the same gateway IP address.

You have a few options.

  1. Pay extra and get a public IP.
  2. Look at intouch and see if that is good enough
  3. Host a Fusionhub in the cloud and use port forwarding from its public IP.

There are loads of post about all of these on here. Search is your friend.

3

I really appreciate your response. While it wasn’t what I want to hear, at least I know what’s going on.

[1] I live in the sticks, no fiber or cable near here, a more expensive cellular plan is not an option.
[2] I checked out and signed up for InTouch, but that doesn’t allow me to port forward.

So Fusionhub as I understand, depends on at least one static IP, which isn’t available in my case. So I would be really happy if somebody could explain how to address my use case, which is accessing a PostgreSQL database from anywhere with Internet, with the PostgreSQL server running at my business location on a dynamic IP. At this point I have given up hope, and probably have to wait until Fiber or Cable get to my part of the world somewhere near the end of my useful life.

I found this article, but it seems I still need a static IP for the PepVPN:
https://knowhow.peplink.ninja/kb/accessing-a-server-hosted-behind-pepvpn-from-the-internet-using-port-forwarding/

4

So the idea is this:
You host a Fusionhub virtual machine in the cloud ($6/month) that has its own static public IP address (the green one).

You then create a VPN between your pepwave and the fusionhub.

Once connected you can then port forward from the Fusionhub public IP to the LAN Ip of the SQL server over the VPN.

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I have a video here about how to set up Fusionhub so you can see how it works.

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5

For other people coming here:

After following the video, and some private exchange between Martin and myself, I have this working. Do note that testing this setup only works from a client network different than the PostgreSQL server’s network. For all clients on the same physical network as the server, I use the address 192.168.50.XXX. For clients that are mobile I use the VPN (FusionHub) network 45.63.XX.XXX

Of course, it should not be necessary to mention that the PostgreSQL server needs to be properly configured.

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