Cannot ping WAN ip from inside LAN (that's it -- weird huh)

podollb · Apprentice Joined: 05 May 2005 Posts: 190

This is a question that isn't really Gentoo specific, but I figured I would ask it here since the Gentoo forums have always been so helpful...

I have a weird situation.

I have a network that is functioning properly as far as I can tell. I can ping everyone inside the network (i.e. 192.168.2.66), I can ping everyone outside the network (i.e. google.com), I can ping my WAN IP from outside my LAN, ...

BUT I can't ping my WAN from inside my LAN. It is so weird. I can ssh outside the LAN and then ping my router's WAN IP address, but inside my LAN I cannot. I can ping the WAN gateway, and DNS servers just fine, but it is just the one WAN IP that I cannot.

What would cause this?

magic919 · Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 7:08 am Post subject:

It's a common side-effect of NAT.

podollb · Apprentice Joined: 05 May 2005 Posts: 190

So what is the work around?

magic919 · Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 7:55 am Post subject:

The workaround is don't expect to ping the WAN address from the LAN.

If you have anything that is going to rely on being able to contact the WAN IP from the LAN then you'd have to post some network details. Even then it may be impossible without changing hardware.