Port forwarding for a Sons of the Forest server
Three UDP forwards are needed here, and just one of them follows from another. You need the game port, a Steam query port with a fixed number, and a third port whose job is moving world state to players.
Your setup
Choose the firmware family rather than your exact model — every router in a family shares the same menus.
Out of the box it is 8766. If you changed that, use whatever you set in GamePort in dedicatedserver.cfg.
The local address of the computer that runs the server. Find it with ipconfig on Windows or ip addr on Linux; it will begin with 192.168, 10. or 172.
Open these
Your firmware takes ranges, so each line here is one rule.
- 8766 UDP
- 9700 UDP
- 27016 UDP
8766UDPGame trafficGamePort.27016UDPSteam queryQueryPort. A fixed default, independent of the game port.9700UDPBlob syncBlobSyncPort. Carries world-state transfer; without it clients stall at the loading screen.
Do not open these
Good news: this game has no remote-admin port that could be exposed by mistake. Forward the ports on the left and stop there.
Step by step: your router
- 1
Give the server a fixed local IP
A forwarding rule targets a single local address. If the server comes back from a reboot with a new one, the rule quietly points at an empty address — which is how forwards seem to "break by themselves".
On this router:look for DHCP Reservation, Address Reservation, Static Lease or Manually Assigned IP
- 2
Open the router admin page
From a device on the same network, open one of these in a browser:
- 192.168.0.1
- 192.168.1.1
- 192.168.2.1
- 10.0.0.1
Almost always printed on a sticker on the router itself.
- 3
Find the port forwarding page
Port Forwarding, Virtual Server, NAT, Applications & Gaming, or Port Mapping
Vendors use at least six names for the same feature. Whatever it is called, the page you want is the one asking for a port, a protocol and a device on your network. If the external and internal port fields both exist, set them to the same number.
- 4
Create one rule per line
a description field, if there is one External / WAN / Public / Service port Internal / LAN / Private port Protocol Internal IP / Device / Server IP Sons of the Forest 8766 8766 UDP your server’s local IP Sons of the Forest 9700 9700 UDP your server’s local IP Sons of the Forest 27016 27016 UDP your server’s local IP Use the same number for the external and internal port. You can make the external one different, but then every player has to connect on that new number, so keep them identical unless you have a specific reason not to.
- 5
Let the server through its own firewall
The router is now sending traffic to the right computer, but that computer can still turn it away. Windows Defender Firewall is the usual offender: it blocks a newly installed dedicated server by default, and from outside that is indistinguishable from a broken forward.
Take it with you
Sons of the Forest — port forwarding rules ------------------------------------------ 8766 UDP -> <server local IP> 9700 UDP -> <server local IP> 27016 UDP -> <server local IP>
Check whether it worked
Always test from outside your network. A connection from another device in the house proves nothing: that traffic stays on your LAN and never passes through the rule you just created.
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The usual mistake
That third port is behind a failure people remember. Without it the connection succeeds and the server admits the player — and then the loading screen never ends, because the world data cannot get to them. It gets mistaken for a corrupted save or an underpowered host; it is neither of those.
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Skipping port forwarding
The game is built for a small group, so hosting it is normally about persistence, not capacity: can your friends get into the world when the person whose PC runs it is away?