How to Open Ports in a Cisco Linksys E2500 Router

The Cisco Linksys E2500 router has a firewall that helps protect your home network from unwanted Internet access. The firewall works by blocking incoming connections you may need for certain games and applications. To open these needed ports you need to create a port forward.

In this guide I will show you how to port forward on the Cisco Linksys E2500 router. These steps include how to:

setup a static IP address on the device you plan on forwarding these ports to.
login to the Cisco Linksys E2500 router web interface.
find the port forwarding page in the router's web interface.
setup a port forward for the online game or program of your choice.

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Step 1

It is important to setup a static ip address in the device that you are forwarding a port to. This ensures that your ports will remain open even after your device reboots.

Recommended - Our free Static IP Setter will set up a static IP address for you.
Another way to get a permanent IP address is to set up a DHCP reservation.
Or, manually create a static ip address with our Static IP Guides.

This step is important because you want a permanent IP address in your device. If you do not set up a permanent IP address in your device, then when you device reboots it may get a new IP address.

Use a VPN Instead

Have you considered using a VPN instead of forwarding a port? For most users, a VPN is a much simpler and more secure choice than forwarding a port.

We use and recommend NordVPN because not only is it the fastest VPN, it includes a new feature called Meshnet that makes forwarding a port no longer necessary for most applications. With NordVPN Meshnet, you can connect to your devices from anywhere in the world, completely secure, over a highly encrypted VPN tunnel.

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Step 2

We can now login to the Cisco Linksys E2500 router. To do this you need to open a web browser. It normally doesn't matter which browser you decide to use, simply pick your favorite such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome.

Open up your web browser and find the address bar. It should look something like this:

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 router and type in your router's IP address.

The default Cisco Linksys E2500 IP Address is: 192.168.1.1

After entering the IP address of your router you can simply press the Enter key. If all goes well you will see the following screen:

You should see a box prompting you for your username and password. If you do not see a box similar to the one above you need to find out what the router's IP address has been changed to. Follow the directions on this How To Find Your Router's IP Address page.

The Default Cisco Linksys E2500 Router Username is: none
The Default Cisco Linksys E2500 Router Password is: admin

Enter your username and password, and then click the OK button to log in to your Cisco Linksys E2500 router.

Having Trouble?

This is a pretty common place to get stuck. If you find yourself here, don't panic, there are a few things you can try:

First, check all the different Cisco default combinations. Here is our list of all known Default Cisco Linksys Router Passwords.

Second, try and guess what the password/username was changed to. Use our Find Password App to make this step easier.

Finally, if you still can't login to the router after trying both of the above options, it may be time to consider a factory reset. Learn more about this option on the How to Reset a Router page.

Step 3

Now we need to find the port forwarding section in your router. Here's how you do it. Starting from the Basic Setup page in your router:

First, click the Applications & Gaming link at the top of the page.

This opens a new menu under the old one. There are two different ways to port forward on this router. If you are forwarding only one port or ports not in order such as 22, 34, 59, click Single Port Forwarding. If you are forwarding a group of ports in a range such as 22-56 choose the link labeled Port Range Forwarding. For this guide the image below is if you chose Port Range Forwarding.

Step 4

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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Forwarding a Single Port

Enter the name of the program into the Application Name box. It doesn't really matter what you put into this box, but something that will remind you why these ports are being forwarded is be a good idea.

Enter the port to forward into the External Port and the Internal Port boxes.

The protocol that you want to forward is selected from the Protocol box.

Enter the IP address that you are forwarding ports to in the To IP Address box. This is either the IP address of a computer or the IP address of another device on your network.

Make sure that the Enabled checkbox is checked.

Forwarding a Port Range

Create a name for this forward and put it in the Application Name box. The name is only used as a reminder and has no effect on the port forward.

If you are forwarding a range of ports separated by a hyphen then enter the lowest number of that range into the Start Port box and the highest number of that range into the End Port box. If you are only forwarding a single port number then enter that number into both the Start Port and the End Port boxes.

From the Protocol box select the protocol for the ports that you want to forward.

Enter the IP address that you want to forward these ports to into the To IP Address box. Note that if you are forwarding ports so you can run a program on a device other than your computer then you can enter your device's IP address into that box instead.

Enable the Enabled checkbox by putting a check in it.

When you're finished, click the blue Save Settings button at the bottom of the screen to save your changes.

Test if Your Ports are Open

Now that you have forwarded ports on the Cisco Linksys E2500 you should test to see if your ports are forwarded correctly.

To test if your port has been properly forwarded, you can use our Network Utilities tool, which includes a free Open Port Checker. Our Open Port Check tool is the only online port checking tool with Guaranteed Results.