How to Open Ports in a Asus RT-AC86U Router

A Asus RT-AC86U router protects your home network by blocking unwanted incoming internet connections and acting as a basic firewall. Sometimes you need to open a port in your router in order to get a good connection for a game or to use a specific device on your network. The RT-AC86U lets you choose the applications that are allowed to connect through an open port. By opening a port in your router you allow a specific application or game to send data from the internet to your home network.

To open a port in your Asus RT-AC86U router, follow these important steps:

1. Set up a static IP address on the computer or device that you are forwarding ports to.
2. Log in to your Asus RT-AC86U router.
3. In your Asus RT-AC86U router, navigate to the Virtual Server / Port Forwarding section.
   • Click the WAN tab at the left of the screen.
   • Find the Virtual Server / Port Forwarding tab located near the top of the screen and click it.
4. Create a Virtual Server / Port Forwarding entry.

Opening ports in a router can be a difficult process the first few times. Don't get discouraged! We will walk you through all the steps to open a port in the Asus RT-AC86U router.

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Step 1

If you want to ensure that your ports remain open even after your device reboots, set up a static IP address in the device that you are opening a port for.

• Recommended - Our free program will setup a static IP address for you.

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• Or follow our Static IP Address guides to setup a static IP address.

After setting up a static ip address on your devices you need to login to your router.

Step 2

In order to login to the Asus RT-AC86U router you need to use a web browser. The Asus RT-AC86U router uses what is called a web interface where you can access and control router settings.

Go ahead and open up your favorite web browser. If you don't have a favorite or are not sure what this means, open up Chrome, Firefox, or Edge.

If this step is confusing, we have simplified it for you with this link: Login to your RT-AC86U Router

Find the address bar once you have opened up a web browser. This is usually located at the top of the page, like in the image below.

Above is an example of what a web browser address bar looks like. Find the address bar in your web browser and type in your router's IP address.

The Asus RT-AC86U router's default IP address is: 192.168.1.1

After typing your router's IP address into the address bar, make sure to click the enter button on your keyboard. You should see a box similar to the one shown below.

To login, enter the username and password for the Asus RT-AC86Us. Important Note: If you have changed them in the past, you need to enter in those values.

• The default Asus RT-AC86U Router Username is: admin
• The default Asus RT-AC86U Router Password is: admin

Once you enter your username and password, click the Sign In button.

Asus Usernames and Passwords

If the username or password did not work check out our Default Asus Router Passwords page.

If you are unable to log in even after trying the above list of passwords you may need to consider a reset for your router. Our guide How to Reset a Router can help you with that. After resetting the Asus RT-AC86U router your username and password will be reverted back to factory defaults.

Step 3

After successfully logging in to your Asus RT-AC86U router you should see the router's home page on your screen. Find the Virtual Server / Port Forwarding section of your router.

• Find the WAN tab located near the left of the screen and click on it.
• Click on the Virtual Server / Port Forwarding tab, which is at the top of the screen.

You are now on the Virtual Server / Port Forwarding page.

Step 4

Make sure that you must open a port in your router before doing so since this will allow data to come through the firewall portion of your router to a specific device. It is possible that this could lead to malicious traffic on your network. However, don't let this warning stop you from making this change if you need it because the risk is very low.

Here are the ports to forward for Xbox Live:

• TCP Ports: 3074
• UDP Ports: 3074

If you are looking for the ports for a different application you can find it by either:

• Browsing our List of Games
• Check out our our List of Games by Genre
• See our List of all Applications

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1. To start adding an entry, click the button that says Add profile.

2. Make up a name to put in the Service Name box. The name does not have any effect on the functionality of the forward; it's simply there so you can know why it was created. Or if you want, just leave it blank.

3. Select the protocol type of the ports that you are forwarding from the Protocol dropdown box. If your router has the option of Both, then go ahead and select that. Otherwise, select either TCP or UDP as needed. If you need to forward a port for both TCP and UDP, but your router does not have Both, then you will need to create two entries.

4. If you are forwarding a single port number, enter it into the External Port box. If you are forwarding a range of ports, enter the lowest number of that range into the External Port box followed by a colon followed by the largest number. For example a range of port numbers might look like this: 1000:2000. Or you can forward a list containing both single ports and port ranges, separated by commas. An example of a list would look something like this: 1000:2000,3000,4000:5000.

   • Internal Port is optional and can be left empty. By default it'll use the same port information that was entered in to the External Port box.

5. Go ahead and enter the IP address that you are forwarding ports to into the Internal IP Address box. It is possible for this to be either the IP address of your computer or of any other device on your network that you want ports forwarded to.

   • Source IP is also optional and can be left blank.

6. To apply these changes, remember to click the OK button at the bottom of the page when you are completely finished.

Test Your Open Ports

Finally, test your network to see if you have forwarded ports in the Asus RT-AC86U router correctly. To do this you can use Network Utilities, which includes a free Open Port Checker tool. Open Port Checker is the only online port-checking tool that has Guaranteed Results.

Other Guides You May Be Interested In:

• We have software called Network Utilities that do all of this and more.
• Learn more about how to Setup your router.
• A full listing of all our games and applications that require port forwarding.