# How to play StarCraft over the internet without Battle.net

*2006-11-01*

> Play StarCraft and Brood War over the internet without Battle.net using Battle.LAN, with firewall configuration and multiplayer setup.

A few colleagues at the university and I, all fans of classic games, decided to play StarCraft: Brood War over the internet. We wanted to create a private game without connecting to Battle.net, but the game didn’t offer a way to specify the server’s IP address. After searching the web and trying several solutions, I found Battle.LAN, a small application that did exactly what we needed.

![Battle.LAN v0.5 showing its IP address field, receivers list, and control buttons](/blog/battle-lan.gif)

*Replacement screenshot from the [LanCraft Battle.LAN tutorial](https://lancraft.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-to-use-battlelan.html). The addresses shown are private; use public IP addresses for internet play.*

Here’s how to set it up. The versions covered here are StarCraft: Brood War 1.14 and StarCraft 1.09 or later, using Battle.LAN v0.5 for Windows 2000/XP.

## Firewall configuration

Your firewall must allow UDP traffic on port `6111`. If you use a GNU/Linux machine as your firewall/router, the following rule forwards incoming traffic on that port to your gaming PC:

```sh
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i INTERNET_INTERFACE -p udp \
    --dport 6111 -j DNAT --to-destination INTERNAL_PC_IP
```

Replace `INTERNET_INTERFACE` with the interface connected to the internet and `INTERNAL_PC_IP` with your gaming PC’s LAN address, then run the command on the router as root. The router must also have IP forwarding enabled, and its `FORWARD` rules must permit this traffic.

## Starting the game

1. Run Battle.LAN with administrator privileges on every player’s computer, including the host.
2. In the **IP Address** box, enter your public internet IP address and click **Add**. Repeat this for the public IP addresses of all the other players.
3. Click **Save**, then **Start**. Leave Battle.LAN running; you can minimize it.
4. Start StarCraft or StarCraft: Brood War and select **Multiplayer → Local Area Network (UDP)**.
5. Have one player create a game. The other players should see it in the **Game** list and be able to select it to join.

You can find a [Battle.LAN v0.5 download and the original README on GameFront](https://www.gamefront.com/games/warcraft-iii/file/battle-lan).