[wplug] Port Forwarding in Verizon Router

[Greg Simkins]

I have Verizon FIOS service and I am having trouble properly configuring the port forwarding so I can get remote access to my iMac (screen sharing) and an ubuntu host which I just set up. 

I set up a Dell PowerEdge SC 1420 server with ubuntu 11.10 (desktop - 64 bit) on my home network.  It gets its IP address by DHCP from Verizon Westel 6100 FIOS modem/router. 

I was able to contact the ubuntu server from outside my network on my public IP address using port forwarding of port 22 to 192.168.1.55, the address of the ubuntu machine.  Now, it seems to have stopped working. At the same time, my remote screen sharing on my iMac also stopped working.  

Looking at the port forwarding, I notice that both my iMac and ubuntu machine are assigned these two odd looking IP addresses:  8.15.7.117 and
63.251.179.13.  I found an article that said it may be a result of DNS lookups from Verizon's DNS servers:  http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r22076303-Odd-discovery-port-443-forward

I haven't been able to follow what is going on.  When I click on the host in the Verizon router control interface (192.168.1.1) and click on "Resolve Now", it searches and comes up with these weird IP addresses.  They are located in California and I guess are part of the Verizon service.  But they appear to be making it impossible for me to get remote access to the iMac and Ubuntu machine from outside my network.  I can't find a way to change the DNS servers.  One suggestion was to use non-Verizon DNS servers. 

I installed Aegir on the ubuntu machine and perhaps some of the configuration associated with Aegir has fed over to the verizon router.  I don't know if the tail is wagging dog or vice versa. 

Anybody have any ideas?

Greg