I just tried, deleting the rules and deleting the Port Forwarding settings...

Then portchecktool was able to connect to my firewall on 8096 (but nothing else would work, obviously, as there's no port forwarding!)

I re-enable the firewall

Now portchecktool is unable to connect to 8096 (fair enough)

I enable port forwarding, hoping that this will have some effect on the firewall, it doesn't, portchecktool still can't connect

I add rule #1, allowing inbound on 8096 to my media server - portchecktool still can't connect

I add rule #2, allowing inbound on 8096 to my gateway (in case NATing happens after the firewall checks) - portchecktool still can't connect

I add rule #3, allowing inbound on 8096 (blank IP address, so essentially to any host) - portchecktool still can't connect

I've also disabled the only deny rule I have, even though it's for outbound connections, over 80, to specific URLs...

This isn't making any sense to me... I must be doing one little thing wrong, I just can't find it anywhere!

Hi Carneth, did you make it?
I'm not sure if the router can do what you want. Sounds quite complicated...Did you contact TP-LINK support team?
http://ticket.tp-link.com/index.php?/Tickets/Submit

Hey there,It's not working yet. I have contacted support, they've asked for screenshots - which I've sent. Given that the firewall has a direction option with a value of IN, I would expect it to work. All I'm trying to do is allow connections IN on a specific port. The support team implied that it should work, I.e. The ability to expose a web server - which is all I'm trying to do. Traditional very first gen ever firewalls just support ingress filtering, with options to open up specific ports. The more advanced ones supported egress filtering. However, on this model, egress is working perfectly and ingress is seeming to be like a solid wall unless I turn it off. Don't get it. Given some of the advanced-ish features that this firewall supports, it's kind of surprising that it wouldn't support this. So - hopefully I'll get a response from the support team. But they've gone somewhat quiet, maybe they can't figure it out (or maybe it's just Easter holidays!!)I'll update here with the details of how to get it working (if I ever do get it working) just in case someone else wishes to expose a web server !