Interesting!!! Not clear about your network topology and your internet servers. the 24.132.133.180 is your wan IP address of the R470T+, or something else ?

This link is really useful: http://www.tp-link.com/en/article/?id=134

The feature I am talking about is called "NAT loopback".

It is not a question about basic port forwarding. I can handle that one.

It's about being able to access the port forward from the INSIDE of the network.

Suppose my PC is at 192.168.0.5
Suppose my Server is at 192.168.0.3
Suppose the internal address of the LAN interface of the router is 192.168.0.1
Suppose the external address of the WAN interface of the router is 24.132.133.180.

Then what must happen is:

192.168.0.5 <--> 192.168.0.1 24.132.133.180 192.168.0.1 <--> 192.168.0.3

So in that case all traffic goes through the router and requires NAT translation back and forth. Suppose the desired server is a port 80 webserver. 192.168.0.5 tries to reach 24.132.133.180 port 80. The router receives this request on the internal interface (192.168.0.1). It sees that the requested destination is on the outside, so it does Source-NAT, changing the IP source address of the package from 192.168.0.5 to 24.132.133.180. Then it routes the package - to itself. It realizes the requested port requires port forwarding to 192.168.0.3, so it does Destination-NAT, changing the IP destination address of the package from 24.132.133.180 to 192.168.0.3. It then routes it to the internal interface 192.168.0.1 and sends it off.

The Server at 192.168.0.3 then receives a package from 24.132.133.180. A request for port 80. The Server responds to it by sending a package back. The Router again performs SNAT, and then again DNAT according to its tables and routes the package to 192.168.0.5.

In this way, there is performance loss, because the Router has to do NAT translations all the time. But the Server is accessible from inside the network using the external address that all other people also use.

My friend has a TL-WR340G. He said that the tplink tech support told him that the TL-WR340G and all their Wired Router can support NAT Loopback function. Maybe you can send an email to them to confirm it.

I was in touch with Olivia Zhang from tech support in Hong Kong probably. She ran a test for me this afternoon to check, and she confirmed that loopback works. She says they have a list of ADSL routers that support loopback, but no list for wired routers yet.

Lol... now another support tech from TP-Link has also run some tests, and she confirmed that it does NOT support NAT Loopback. :S.

Meanwhile, I realized it is not a gigabit router so I can't use it for my needs anyway.

I'm pretty sure TP-LINK wired routers support NAT Loopback, I have test it with my IP camera, it works.

Thank you. Olivia Zhang confirmed the same. Also with IP camera.

I am probably going to install a 3rd party firmware on it though like OpenWRT, Gargoyle or DD-WRT. And I'm not getting the one I mentioned, but the TL-WR1043ND. I am glad to hear that this feature is supported natively.