What is relay mode?
Helium miners become relayed when other miners cant connect to your miner directly. Instead, your miner will go into relay mode and use another miner on the network to communicate back with yours. Sounds confusing but its actually pretty simple. Helium uses your public IP address to link your miner on the Helium network. When miners cant access your miner through a public IP address they must communicate information with another relayed miner. This can hurt your mining rewards and cause strain on other miners in the network. Maybe your okay with it, but it actually affects the miners that have to relay the information back to your miner.
What's the problem?
Your home network router needs port forwarding properly setup to allow other Helium devices to communicate with yours via your unique public IP address. In order to do this Helium uses a specific port number to allow access through your public IP address to your miners local IP address. Port 44158 is the port used so in this guide we will teach you how exactly you can forward this port and remove the relay status from your miner.
What does port forwarding do?
Port forwarding allows specific services like SSH (Secure Shell Port 22), FTP (File Transfer Protocol Port 21), and many other services to access a particular feature of a device while keeping other services protected from hackers. Helium uses port 44158 to do this. That means by using port forwarding with a specific port you don't need to worry about hackers being able to hack the device.
Is this supported on my router?
Port forwarding is supported on most routers however the process can be different for every router brand and router model in some cases. In this guide we will focus on a general how to. If you need information on a specific router brand we will post guides for them at your request. Please note we don't currently have all router brands and models and this may take us time to build guides but we will do our best.
What ports do I need to forward?
Helium posted on their website:
"We recommend enabling TCP Ports 44158 in both directions in your router. Check your Router's manufacturing instructions on how to open ports 44158."
and
"For support and firmware updates, we will need ports 22 and 443 open Outbound."
However, this is confusing to some users and we will clarify this here.
Port 44158 is the ONLY port that needs to be port forwarded. We do NOT need to port forward ports 22 and 443.
How do I know if ports 22 and 443 are open outbound?
This is generally always enabled by default from your ISP (Internet Service Provider) and you can test it by simple going to any SSL website. In fact, if you made it to this guide your ISP already setup port 443. Try going to any website starting with https:// if it works then SSL (Secure Socket Layer Port 443) is working properly outbound. For example https://comcast.com will load properly if SSL is enabled. If its not enabled this website wont load at all. If for some odd reason this website doesn't work for you comment below or message us on the live chat for further help. For most people this isn't an issue. So during our port forward setup we should NOT forward these ports 22 and 443.
How fast will my miner get out of relay?
Technically, your miner should be out of relay mode very quickly. A lot of people will tell you it will take days. They are right and they are wrong. In our guide we will show you how to use https://heliumstatus.io to verify if your still in relay mode before Helium actually catches on. Now you will still be in relay mode for a few days but you don't need to keep checking to see if it changed or re-setup your router again. The issue is Helium's explorer at https://explorer.helium.com takes a very long time to re-sync with your miner. Helium doesn't constantly check your miner is online or relayed. Instead, helium randomly checks the miners connection. This could be in a few hours, a day, or even multiple days. Just because explorer is telling you that your miner is in relay mode doesn't mean your port forward setup is not working. We will walk you through how to test your connection in advance. Once the connection test is verified working then you will need to wait a couple days for Helium to update this status.
If everything is setup correctly but I'm still in relay mode can I still earn rewards/?
Of course, once you have verified your connection is good you may notice a change in rewards right away. Either way allow Helium a few days to update your miners true status.
Can my IP address change in the future?
Yes! Your public IP address can change every day or even on every router restart. However, public IP address changes are not an issue with Helium. Helium will automatically get your new public IP address if it change.
Your local IP address can change as well, this is what we need to prevent. If your miners local IP address changes on its own this can break your port forward settings making your miner go back into relayed mode. This can be prevented from within your home routers settings page using a static (unchangeable) DHCP IP client setup. We will discuss this later in the guide as well as created more how to guides on this subject.
What do I need before I start?
There are a few things we need to gather first before we start to make the process a lot easier.
- You home routers local IP address.
- Your home routers default username and password.
- Your helium hotspot miners local IP address.
- (Optional) Your home routers public IP address.
If your not sure how to find this information simply click the step you need help with to go to a how to guide.
Once you have these you can write them down or screenshot them if you prefer.
Your now ready to setup port forwarding.
How do I open ports to my miner?
After gathering the information above click below to check out our port forward guide.
How can I test if everything worked?
What if my ISP doesn't allow port forwarding?
We are currently working on a VPN setup guide to get you setup with your own VPN server and unique public IP address that will work regardless of your ISP blocking port forwarding or providing you with a non working public IP address. Please keep an eye out on our Helium category for the guide when it becomes available.
What if I'm still stuck?
If your stuck and have checked out all of our troubleshooting guides please comment below or message us via the live chat button on the bottom right of the website. We are looking into offering paid services for those with more advanced issues and would prefer a tech from The Crypto Intent to do the work for them as well. We will always try our best to help and are excited to help the Helium community.
