Hosting a Factorio Dedicated Server on Vodafone Germany (Without Going Crazy)

You’re in Germany, you’ve got a shiny gigabit line from Vodafone, and you just want a small Factorio dedicated server for you and your friends. On paper it sounds simple: home lab, gaming PC, some VMs, job done. In reality, if your ISP is doing weird IPv6/CGNAT things, home game server hosting can feel like a boss fight you didn’t sign up for.
This story walks through what actually happens when you try to host a Factorio dedicated server behind Vodafone, why the server shows up but no one can join, and what alternatives (including proper dedicated server hosting) start to make more sense.

How It Started

So, I’m in Germany, Vodafone gigabit contract, all happy.
Goal: host a headless Factorio dedicated server at home so my colleagues and I can play together.
Result after three days: mild madness.

First attempt: I spin up a fresh Ubuntu Server VM on my Windows Server host.
The Windows Server VM host lives in the same address range as my gaming PC, so on paper everything is nice and local.
From inside the house, I can reach the server by its LAN IP without issues.

In the Factorio multiplayer browser, the game actually appears.
It even looks kind of healthy… and then comes the fun part: there is no ping, and every connection attempt just times out.

The logs don’t say “hey, wrong port” or “IP mismatch”.
They show the server trying to talk to the pingpong servers and then… nothing.
Just ten seconds of silence, then the game continues as if nothing happened.
It feels like a polite timeout: “Yeah, we tried, nobody answered, moving on.”

The Network Matryoshka Doll

Here’s the network layout, simplified:

• VM host is behind an OPNsense firewall in the 192.168.10.0 network.

• That OPNsense firewall is behind my own Fritzbox in the 192.168.2.0 network.

• The Fritzbox is the thing that actually connects to the WAN.

So yes, double NAT.
Normally, that’s annoying but not fatal. For everything else in the house, it never really caused problems.

I tried to be a responsible adult and do port forwarding properly:

• Forward ports on the Fritzbox to OPNsense

• Forward ports on OPNsense to the Ubuntu VM

In theory, this should let at least a laptop in the 192.168.2.x range see the Factorio server.
In practice, even that laptop couldn’t connect – not through the multiplayer browser and not directly via IP.

At that point you start doubting everything:
Is Factorio weird? Is OPNsense cursed? Is it me?

Removing One Layer of Pain

Next step: simplify.

I bypass OPNsense completely.
The VM host gets plugged directly into the Fritzbox, same network as the gaming rig and the laptop.

Now things get interesting:

• My gaming PC can connect via IP.

• The laptop can connect via IP.

• Local LAN stuff? Works fine.

• Friends from the internet? Still can’t get in.

So inside the house, life is good.
From the outside world, my server might as well not exist.

That’s when I start poking around in the Fritzbox settings more seriously.

Vodafone’s IPv6 Surprise

I eventually realize the Fritzbox only has a “real” IPv6 address on the WAN side.
The IPv4 address it shows is coming from some ISP tunnel / carrier NAT magic.

When I disable IPv6 on the Fritzbox, the whole internet just drops dead until I turn it back on.
No “just use IPv4 only” option.
Basically, it’s:

Take the IPv6 + tunneled IPv4 combo or don’t have internet at all.

This is classic DS-Lite / CGNAT territory: your home network doesn’t get a real, public IPv4 address of its own.
Which is exactly what you need if you want to host a game server at home and have people connect to it from outside.

So from a game’s perspective, this is the situation:

• You’re trying to host a Factorio dedicated server.

• The server tries to talk to the outside world.

• Somewhere in Vodafone’s infrastructure, traffic gets stuck, rewritten, or quietly dropped.

• Your server is invisible from the public internet, no matter how many times you “port forward.”

At some point I had this moment of clarity: maybe I’m not bad at networking. Maybe the setup is just not meant to work for public game server hosting the way I want it to.

If you’re hitting the same wall with Vodafone, one very clean way out is simply not to host from your living room at all. Renting an external dedicated game server with a proper public IP and no carrier NAT is often less painful than wrestling your ISP router.
That’s where services like GTHost start to look very attractive, because you can get an instant dedicated server without wondering what your Fritzbox is secretly doing in the background. 👉 Check how GTHost lets you spin up a low-latency dedicated game server without fighting Vodafone’s DS-Lite setup.

The Father-In-Law Workaround

Before giving up, I tried something a bit wild.

My father-in-law lives in the same house but has his own internet contract with Telekom.
Different ISP, different router, different story.

I set up a WiFi bridge from my network over to his router.
No fancy stuff. Just: my gear → WiFi bridge → his router.

I plug the VM host into that bridged network.
No complicated port forwarding, no endless rule chains.

Factorio server starts.
Pingpong servers respond.
Friends from WAN connect.
It just works.

Same game, same VM, same dedicated server configuration.
The only difference: Telekom instead of Vodafone, and no carrier-grade IPv4 weirdness in the way.

At that point it’s pretty clear the bottleneck isn’t Factorio, my server, or even my firewall adventures.
It’s the way Vodafone is handling addresses and NAT.

So the “permanent” plan for now looks like this:

• Keep the WiFi bridge to my father-in-law’s Telekom router.

• Let the Factorio server live in that network.

• Accept that my own gigabit Vodafone line just isn’t friendly to public game server hosting.

Not elegant, but it works.

So… Anyone Hosting Headless Factorio on Vodafone?

That’s the big question that remains:
Is there anyone in Germany, on Vodafone, who has actually managed to host a headless Factorio dedicated server from their LAN and have people connect from the public internet, without some ISP gymnastics?

If yes, what did you do?

• Special contract with real public IPv4?

• Business line?

• Some secret Fritzbox wizardry I missed?

From where I’m standing, with a regular consumer gigabit contract, double NAT, and DS-Lite, it feels like the deck is stacked against simple home game server hosting. The network works for everything else in the house, just not for “I want to be a tiny game host on the public internet.”

Conclusion

Trying to host a Factorio dedicated server at home on Vodafone Germany turned into a tour of double NAT, IPv6 tunnels, and DS-Lite limits. Inside the LAN, everything worked; the moment friends tried to join from outside, the server basically disappeared behind the ISP’s carrier-grade setup. Switching to a different ISP (via the father-in-law’s Telekom line) made the exact same server work instantly, which says a lot.

If you’re on Vodafone in Germany and want stable game server hosting that your friends can reach reliably, you really have two realistic paths: change the type of internet contract you have, or move the server out of your flat and into proper dedicated server hosting with a real public IP. That’s exactly why GTHost is suitable for home gamers and small teams who just want a simple, public Factorio server without fighting DS-Lite or double NAT: 👉 spin up a GTHost dedicated server in minutes and skip the Vodafone router drama entirely.