Gaming Consoles at University

[TechB0SS]

I work at a university with on-campus housing. I have been some complaints from students that they are not able to play online multi-player games using their XBOX. Not an extreme concern for me, but trying to understand what is happening. Most of the students get an error "NAT Type: Strict and UPnP not successful"

We are full stack Meraki environment, MX450>MS250>MR33. On the MX450 for the student housing buildings, there are NO outbound firewall rules, completely wide-open! Not sure why some, not all, of the XBOX consoles are getting this error. Haven't received any complaints from any using another games console, i.e., PS4 or PS5.

[mlefebvre]

This is because most games require a router that supports UPNP OR you must manually forward ports to the console. Meraki doesn't support UPNP and port forwarding is on a game by game and console by console basis so your luck may vary.

Xbox Live offers a few alternate ports so that you can port forward more than one Xbox One console (up to 6),but that is only for the Xbox Live service itself and not for the games. Some games will have alternative ports available and you can look them up per game, but at the same time some popular games like Warzone may use completely fixed ports with no alternative.

Xbox Live alternative ports: https://itigic.com/xbox-alternate-ports-open-nat-on-two-consoles-same-network/

I have heard (though not personally verified) that students can use a third party VPN service that offers port forwarding to get around these limitations

[DarrenOC]

Interesting, I’m full-stack at home with my PS4 sat behind an MX with no issues.  I do see NAT type - Moderate.

Worth Whitelisting the users IP and force them to configure their IP statically?  Or, try a good ole fashioned reboot of the Xbox?

[alemabrahao]

Check this link, I think It can be helpful 🙂

https://community.meraki.com/t5/Security-SD-WAN/UPnP-Help/m-p/10861