Enhanced Public lobby

A guide to create your own friend only lobby with the ability to play public lobby activities (CEO crates, Motor club, Import/Export, Smuggler run and Gun running).

Update

You can now play in "Friend only" lobby instead of blocking port.

Introduction

You should know Rockstar is hijacking your computer to host their game servers.
It's a cheap technique used by greedy AAA companies.

Anyway, as your computer is your server and not their, you should be able to enjoy GTA Online the way you want.
You should be able to play the whole content of GTA Online with your friends.
As the "admin" of your server you should be able to kick and ban players easily.

No more bored high-level griefers ruining your days, no more cheaters (unless you are friend with cheaters).

This is a way to take the control of your computer back by using your firewall rules.

Create a Public solo lobby

First part will create the famous public solo lobby. I'm using Windows firewall for this but it should works with other firewalls too.

• Open your firewall
  
• Select "Inbound Rules"
  
• Create a New Rule
  
• Select "Custom"
  
• Select GTA5.exe in "This Program path" (usually in steamapps\common\Grand Theft Auto V)
  
• Click on "Protocol Type" and pick "UDP"
  
• Click on "Local port" and put 6672
  
• Set "Block the connection"
  
• Rule should apply to "Domain", "Private" and "Public"
  
• Then do the same thing for "Outbound Rules"

Nobody will be able to join your lobby. If you don't have friends you can stop there and enjoy grinding money peacefully.
Desactivate those two rules when you want to go on a regular lobby or to play missions/races/heists.

Whitelist IPs

If you have friends, there are additional steps to do.

• Edit "Inbound Rule"
  
• Go in "Scope" tab.
  
• Click on "These IP addresses" in "Remote IP addresses"
  
• Click on "Add"
  Now you need to put your friends IP out of the blocked scopes
  For example, your friend's IP is 180.0.0.1
  You will write 0.0.0.0 then 180.0.0.0
  
• Click on "Add" again
  Then write 180.0.0.2 then 255.255.255.255
  
• Repeat "Add" for each friend you want to add
  
• When you are done with "Inbound Rule" do it for "Outbound Rule"

It should looks like this for one friend :
0.0.0.0-<Your friend's ip -1 at the end>
<Your friend's ip +1 at the end>-255.255.255.255

So if your friends ip is for example 180.0.0.1
after 0.0.0.0 you put: 180.0.0.0
and on the next one: 180.0.0.2-255.255.255.255

And like this for two friends (the second one having as IP for the example 225.0.0.5)
0.0.0.0-180.0.0.0
180.0.0.2-225.0.0.4
225.0.0.6-255.255.255.255

Final step

To let your friends join your session

• Join a session with firewall rules desactivated

If you are alone (you are the host of this session) :

• Invite your friend(s) or tell them to join you
  
• Activate firewall rules

If you aren't alone (you aren't the host of the session) :

• Join your MC/CEO buisness
  
• Start a MC/CEO mission (to avoid being kicked back to single player mode)
  
• (While in mission) Activate firewall rules (other people will leave in the next few seconds)
  
• Desactivate firewall rules
  
• Invite your friend(s) or tell them to join you
  
• Activate firewall rules

There is some delay between the moment you desactivated the rules and when your friends will be able to join your session.

Check list if it still doesn't work

• Blocked port should be "Local" and not "Remote"
  
• Blocked scopes should be Remote" and not "Local"
  
• Check if you don't have more than one firewall active
  
• Check if there isn't already a rule called GTA5 or Grand Theft Auto 5 with UDP 6672 open (desactivate it if so)
  
• Open port UDP 6672 in your router

Easier method

Firewall method is still effective this days but it's kind of tedious if you have a lot of friends.

Check this guide to play solo public lobbies and/or whitelisted IPs public lobbies
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1645938817

[nedizaki122]

eror code 0xc0150004

[nedizaki122]

rokstar games eror and social club... help!!

[Mr.White]

After the last update, this modification no longer works (at least for me) when I activate the firewall block and open the game it keeps loading for a long time and after a "time exceeded" message and does not open the online mode anymore .
The "solution" I'm using is the "session by invitation"

[Mekkie]

Same issue as others here. Works fine for me solo, but trying to get a friend in doesn't work. It's set up exactly as explained.

[baridrago]

I just tested it, it does still work as of 2021.12.09

[Larry]

tried it and my friend gets kicked when i activate the rules. i'm on win10 btw

[Wrath]

Big thank you for sharing this. Works like a charm.

[Qiongjiu]

I've been using this guide for 3 years. Kureha approved.

[ƬᗩԲԲվ]

Okay so I finally got it working.

"Join your MC/CEO buisness
Start a MC/CEO mission (to avoid being kicked back to single player mode)"

I didn't realize I was being kicked back to singleplayer. It seemed like more of an issue with a port or an IP address because it just gave the usual "Player left" message.

But indeed that was the issue. Not adding them while I had a mission going.

[Cap'N Cook]

Only the person who will 'host' the lobby needs to open the port.

I did start using this mod a while ago: https://www.gta5-mods.com/tools/gta5o-private-public-lobby-with-multi-ip-whitelist

which does the same just a bit easier :) (Its not my mod and I'm not like promoting it, but if the stuff above doesn't work, why not use another solution)