Computer Network
Ports
You
Can use Your Router To Set Up Computer Network Ports Forwarding
To Play Games And Restrict Access
If you want to play online games
or give other access to your computer network, computer network
ports forwarding is the answer.
Having a router
or firewall is all great but you can run into some problems,
because occasionally you do want to receive none requested
communication from the internet and the router or firewall
had this cool thing called computer networking ports forwarding
or port forwarding . For example I like to play games online
with other people on the internet, but if my router firewall
is in the way acting like a mean receptionist and refuses
any visitors, there is no way for my friends to join me in
a game.
So again to help
you remember it, the remedy is for you to enable computer
network ports forwarding. Here is how it works.
If you are playing
a game on your computer and someone else wants to join in,
you can give them your WAN IP address either by calling them
on the phone or e-mailing it to them. But when they send a
requested to join a game you are hosting on your computers
home network, the router firewall is going to reject the request
by default because I didn't initiate the communication instead
it's coming from the Internet.
The router just
thinks someone is trying to hack into my network, so what
I need to do is to tell the router to allow certain types
of requests through. And that is called? Yup, computer Network
Ports Forwarding.
You do this by
opening what are called ports in the router’s firewall.
Now when you are
surfing the web, checking e-mail or chatting with someone
over the Internet unbeknownst to you is that all the different
types of information you are sending are going through specific
ports in your router’s firewalls.
For example web
page request go through Port 80 and email request go through
port 25. These are arbitrary numbers but they are the number
that are agreed-upon by everybody involved. So when you want
to play a game through my firewall, you have to open up the
right ports.
For instance when
you check the instructions for the game Halo by Microsoft,
you find that the ports it uses for communication are ports
2302 and 2303. So I need to need to go into my router or firewall
software and open up those ports.
By default these ports are close
so anybody trying to communicate through those ports will
be rejected. So if you want people to be able to play the
game and connect to the game on the computers on your network
you have to open those ports up. Not only that but then I
have to tell the router which computer is going to be receiving
communications over these ports; in other words? Computer
Network Ports Forwarding. Otherwise with multiple computers
on my network, your router has no idea where to send incoming
information.
So basically I
have to tell the router, Ok anytime you receive communications
on ports 2302 or 2303 send those directly to the PC for instance.
This is called Port Forwarding.
Now depending on the type of service
you are working with, you have to open up different ports.
It’s a good idea to check the documentation that came with
the game or with the software to see if supplies any ports
you might need to open if communication with the Internet
are involved especially when you are using a firewall or router.
There are dozens and dozens and dozens of different Port numbers
so something you really have to look it up either on the Internet
or with documentation that came with the programs you are
working with.
Once you have setup
ports forwarding you are all set to the play. Anytime someone
wants to play Halo with you (in this example), all they have
to do is connect there game to your
WAN address and when
the router receives a request on port 2302 it sends that information
right to the computer, in this case 192.168.0.101 and then the
game is on.
Now occasionally you may find yourself in a situation where
computer network port forwarding doesn't seem to be working
or you just don’t know which ports need to be opened for a
particular program. In those cases you can set up a DMZ on
your computer.
DMZ stands De-militarized-zone and its basically a quick
and easy way to place a single computer on your network in
front of a firewall. So instead of doing computer network
ports forwarding which involved your router, in a DMZ set
up, all you do is set up the router to direct all incoming
requests to a specific LAN address.
But very important, this is pretty much the same as connecting
a computer directly to the modem without the router, in affect
all you did was get your compute in front of the firewall
now. This can often solve a lot of problems when trying to
play a game, but it can also cause a lot of problems because
you're exposing the computer to all types of communications
and your computer is no longer protected. On the other hand,
it beat having to unhook your router and setting it back up
again.
It's generally a good idea to only place a computer in the
DMZ for just the time necessary to get your work done and
stick it back behind the firewall as soon as possible. But
really for security reasons, you should really try to use
computer network ports forwarding.
So let's get it done...
Here's how you open computer network ports in router, switch,
firewall over to your web browser. Again, in my example I
am using a Linksys router set up, so you will want to go into
your router set up software whether you are working with a
Belkin or Netgear or whatever it happens to be, you will probably
find similar settings for what I am about to do with the Linksys
router. You will just have to hunt around for little a bit
more.
So here in the Linksys setup I am going to applications and
gaining, and here I find an area called Port Range Forward.
You see it even says on the right, certain applications may
require to open specific ports in order for it to function
correctly. Examples of these applications include servers,
certain online games, when requested for certain Ports from
the Internet, the router will route (forward) the data to
the computer you specify. So basically what I just talked
about earlier.
So here you specify the game name,
in our example, I use Halo. Then it is asking me for a start
and an end Port.. So we know Halo is on ports 2302 and 2303.
For the protocol you will use both, there are different types
of communication but choosing both you are covering all your
bases. Next you need to tell the router which computer to
send this information to when it comes in over these ports.
This is the actual computer network ports forwarding part.
Now if you can't
remember what you IP address is for the computer that is to
receive the port data, you can go to start button, click control
panel, choose internet connections and when you see the network
connections icon, right click and choose status off the sub
menu. Once there click the support tab and you will see the
computer address there. Remember the gateway is your router,
so the other IP address will be your computer's address.
So once you have
that address, enter it in as the computer to receive this
data in my example i used the IP address of 192.168.1.100.
So this is telling the router that all communication coming
to ports 2302 & 2303 need to go to the computer located at
192.168.1.100.
Now make sure that
you enable that by clicking and adding the check box to enable
it in the last column. And that is really all there is to
it, I have set up computer network ports forwarding to send
all communication sent though those ports to go immediately
to the computer located at 192.168.1.100.
Now don’t forget,
you have to click save settings in order for these setting
to take affect. It will tell you the settings are successful
so you will just click continue and there it is.
So computer network ports forwarding
is much more secure than just connecting your computer directly
to your modem and directly out to the Internet because this
gives you the option of only opening up a certain port instead
of having everything open over the modem. You can also come
back in here and uncheck enable anytime you want to make sure
those ports are closed.
And you will notice
that you also have that area called DMZ that I spoke about
earlier, this is the de-militarized-zone. So again this is
where you put the address of a computer that you want to stick
in front of your router’s firewall.
Just in case you are having trouble
communicating with somebody over the Internet. All you have
to do here is click enable and enter the IP address of the
computer that you want a place in front of the firewall. In
this case if you wanted to do computer one, just type in the
IP address of 100 save your settings and basically now all
ports are open and all communications will be sent directly
to that computer at the IP address you enter.
Again once you are done using a computer
in the DMZ it is always good idea to disable it to make sure
that your computer isn’t expose to anybody trying to access
it from the Internet.
So that's it! You
now know how to do computer network ports forwarding and under
security i show you what else you can do through your router
or firewall.
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of other important notes:
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