Opening Ports in a Linksys E5400 Router

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Port Forward Staff
July 24, 2019 (Last Updated: ) | Reading Time: 7 minutes

A Linksys E5400 router contains a basic firewall to help protect your home network. A Firewall blocks incoming connections by nature. Sometimes you need to unblock some of these connections so you can run a game or application. This is called opening a port or port forwarding. Port forwarding is literally forwarding a port from the internet to your home network.

You need to follow the steps below to open ports in your Linksys E5400 router:

  1. On the computer or device that you are forwarding ports to, you will need to set up a static IP address.
  2. Log in to your Linksys E5400 router.
  3. Navigate to the Port Forwarding section in your Linksys E5400 router.
    • Click on the Configuration tab, which is at the top of the screen.
    • Find the Security tab located near the left of the screen and click on it.
    • To forward a single port, click the link labeled Single Port Forwarding.
    • To forward a range of ports, click on the link that says Port Range Forwarding.
  4. Go ahead and create a Port Forwarding entry.

If this sounds difficult, you are not alone. We will walk you through each step in opening a port for the Linksys E5400 router.

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Step 1 - Setup A Static IP Address

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.

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

Step 2 - Login To Your Linksys Router

Log in to the Linksys E5400 router. To do this you need to use a web browser because the Linksys E5400 router uses what is called a web interface.

It normally doesn't matter what web browser you use so go ahead and open up your favorite. If you don't have a favorite then open up Chrome, Firefox, or Edge.

If that is confusing to you, we have simplified this step with this link: Login to your E5400 Router

Once you have opened up a browser window, find the address bar. This is usually at the top of the page like the image below shows.

Image of a browser address bar
Browser address bar

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 Linksys E5400 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.

login
This is the login page from your Linksys router.

To login, enter the username and password for the Linksys E5400s. Important Note: If you have changed them in the past, you need to enter in those values.

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

Linksys Usernames and Passwords

If the username and password did not work I recommend checking out our Default Linksys Router Passwords page.

If, after trying the above list of passwords you still can't login you may need to consider a reset for your router. Learn how to do that by reading our How to Reset a Router guide. After resetting the Linksys E5400 router your username and password are reverted back to factory defaults.

Step 3 - Find The Port Forwarding Section

After successfully logging in to your Linksys E5400 router you should see the router's home page on your screen. Find the Port Forwarding section of your router.

home
This is the home page from your Linksys router.

Step 4 - Create A Port Forward Entry

Forwarding ports in your router creates a path that allows data to get through your network firewall, and this could lead to malicious traffic on your network. So make sure that you must forward a port before actually doing so. However, the risk is very low, so do not let this warning stop you from making this change if you need to.

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:

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Forwarding a Single Port

To forward a single port you'll need to be on the Single Port Forwarding page, so go ahead and click on the Single Port Forwarding link at the left of the screen.

port forwarding
This is the port forwarding page from your Linksys router.
  1. Find the Add a New Single Port Forwarding button located near the center of the screen and click on it.

  2. Put a name for this forward in the Application Name box so that you can remember why you set this forward up. The name does not matter, so pick something that has meaning to you.

  3. Enter the port to forward in to the External Port box.

  4. In the Internal Port box, enter the same values that you entered into the External Port box.

  5. 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.

  6. Enter the IP address that you are forwarding ports to into the To IP Address box. It is possible to forward a port to the IP address of your computer or to the IP address of a specific device on your internal network.

  7. Make the Enabled selection in the Enabled drop-down list.

  8. Click the Save button at the bottom of the page when you are completely finished to apply these changes.

Forwarding a Range of Ports

You need to be on the Port Range Forwarding page in order to forward a range of ports, so go ahead and click on the Port Range Forwarding link, which is at the left of the screen.

port forwarding
This is the port forwarding page from your Linksys router.
  1. Click on the Add a New Port Range Forwarding button, which is at the center of the screen.

  2. Make up a name to put in the Application 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.

  3. Enter the lowest number of your port range into the Start Port box. Then, enter the highest number of that range into the End Port box.

  4. 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.

  5. You need to enter the IP address that you are forwarding ports to into the To IP Address box. This can be either the IP address of your computer or any other IP address on your network that you want ports forwarded to.

  6. Make the Enabled selection in the Enabled drop-down list.

  7. Remember to click the Save button at the bottom of the page to apply these changes when you are completely finished.

Test If Your Ports Are Open

Finally, I strongly recommend testing to see if you forwarded the Linksys E5400 ports correctly. To do this you can use our Network Utilities tool, which includes a free Open Port Checker. Open Port Checker is the only online port checking tool that has Guaranteed Results.

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