Steve Smith explains what you need to know, and what goes into port forwarding.
Episode #5-15 released on December 18, 2014
Inspired by my episode on UPNP, this episode is for onzzzgamekanaal from YouTube, and any other person online who has been plagued by the issue, how does one correctly port forward.
First, how about we deal with the reason for port forwarding. Why does one port forward? If you are trying to preventing security issues in how viruses can manipulate UPNP, then port forwarding is for you.
Port forwarding requires you to create a hole in your firewall, by forcing that specific port number to go directly to the desired machine. Your use case scenario may differ a bit from other users, but the fact remains, the external application attempting to access the device inside your network, needs to know your IP address, and more specifically the port number. It is for this reason that most external applications dictate which ports you can use for their application, not you. Attempting to decide which port the application can use will be the same as doing nothing or doing it wrong.
Now that you know that your application dictates which port you will use, that port cannot be reused for any other devices from an external source, and that we are effectively punching a hole into the firewall for this to work, what is next?
You must now go into the settings of your router, and configure port forwarding for the device and port in question. To find out what ports you need to open, please consult the forums or FAQ of your device or program.
You must identify the device's IP address you want to route the traffic. You can find this in your router's client list, usually under the network map.
Once you know the device IP address, and the ports you need to open, both UDP and TCP if either apply, you have to go into the port forwarding section, usually under WAN, of your router and create a new service entry. You need a service name, a port range like 80:81, a local IP address like 192.168.0.120, a local port like 75, and a protocol either UDP or TCP. Then click add.
An example is the Xbox one port forwarding settings.
Port 88 (UDP), Port 3074 (UDP and TCP), Port 53 (UDP and TCP), Port 80 (TCP), Port 500 (UDP), Port 3544 (UDP), Port 4500 (UDP).
Your local IP stays the same, just add a number to each service name, and you are set.
In the sources of these show notes, you will find a graphical guide to help you do the same thing I just explained. If you need more help.
Host : Steve Smith | Music : Jonny Lee Hart | Editor : Steve Smith | Producer : Zed Axis Productions