Port Forwarding | How & Why we should use it!

hi in this video I want to talk about port forwarding and I'm going to use that packet to better demonstrate how I can access for example that computer but from outside my network because otherwise this is not something that would normally be possible I mean there are other ways that I can use to access my local network from the outside for example by using a VPN connection but VPN is not exactly the same besides it can be more complicated because you need to have a VPN server port forwarding though is just simpler and doesn't require a server and most of the Home wireless routers can easily do that now let's take a closer look at this network the network address is 192.168.1.0 24. in other words all the devices in this network will have IP addresses in this range including the wireless router itself these IP addresses are private addresses and are valid on this local area network but not on the internet because only public IP addresses are valid on the internet so that's why the internet interface of the router which is also called when has a public IP address so this way it can communicate with the internet in one of the early videos of this channel I talked about the private and public IP addresses in more details so check it out if you are interested link is also in the video description hope you don't mind the not very good sound quality it was a long time ago and for some reason back then I used to play two different characters some people even ask me if I have a twin brother or something of course not at least not that I know of now let's say this is the computer that I will need to be able to access it from outside my network for example let's say it's a web server which means I will need to be able to access port number TCP 80 and TCP 443 of this IP address but from outside the network so tcpad is HTTP and tcp443 is https but in this video and just for the sake of Simplicity let's only focus on HTTP which is tcpad now if I want to access it from this computer which is on the same network I just need to open a browser here and type in the IP address of the server which should send an HTTP request to this IP address and by default to Port tcpad the destination IP address is valid on this network so the router will forward the packet to the destination and then the server will use the source IP address and Source port number of the packet to send an HTTP response to that computer and this is how they can communicate however the problem is that this IP address is not valid on the internet and if I'm here outside the network I can no longer use that IP address to access the web server now what if I use the public IP address of the wireless router to connect huh hello packet how can I help you hi I'm trying to reach that IP address through Port TCP 80. well that IPR this is me but I'm not offering any service on Port TCP 80. foreign how can I help you hi are you sure I've come a long way can you just double check sure hello hi there no as you saw the router would just drop the packet because how's it supposed to know the destination is the web server and not the router itself so that's why I need to First enable the port forwarding on this router and configured in a way that if it receives a packet with the destination IP address of the router and for TCP 80 then the router should forward that packet to this IP address and Port TCP 80. that should fix the problem [Music] so on my Asus wireless router this is how I can access the port forwarding section now if the service that I want to use and because of that I'm enabling the port forwarding is on this list I can easily select that and it should add the port number for me otherwise I can manually enter it myself so the service name for me is HTTP server the protocol is TCP and the external port number is 80. I can add multiple port numbers if I need to or even use a range of ports as well now here I should specify the internal IP address and internal port number that it should be forwarded to the internal port number as you can see is optional because if I leave it blank then it will forward to the same port as the external Port so in my case I don't need to enter anything here but if I wanted to forward it to a different port number then I can specify it here now if I want to use the port forwarding rule only for a specific IP address from the internet and not everyone else I can specify that IP address here in the source IP Box otherwise if I leave it blank then everybody who sends an HTTP request to this IP address will be forwarded to the server [Music] now that being said I should be really careful with using port forwarding and only enable it when I need it and when I know what I'm doing and definitely disable it as soon as I no longer need it because otherwise it can become a security problem because normally this wireless router which is also a firewall protects the network from hikers and doesn't let them get inside but when I'm enabling the port forwarding I'm intentionally allowing everybody to pass the firewall and get to this device now if this device is not equipped with a firewall or if the operating system is just outdated and there is some kind of vulnerability the hackers might be able to use that and hack this device or even other devices that are connected to this network so I should be absolutely certain that this device is up to date and secured before enabling the port forwarding for it and I should not do that for a device that I'm not sure about its security situation now let's say this device is secured but after some time I just don't need it anymore and I decide I should remove it from the network it is now possible that this IP address will be assigned to another device which is connected to this network therefore that port forwarding rule will be forwarding the packets towards this device and if it is not secured then we're gonna have a problem and that's why it is very important to disable the port forwarding rule which is no longer needed watching this video I hope you liked it give it a thumbs up if you did share it if you think others might like it too and subscribe to the channel if you want to see more videos like this also if you want to consider supporting the channel links are in the video description thank you again and I will see you next time [Music] [Music] thank you

Channel: Behfor

Views: 22,552

Keywords: port forwarding.port, forwarding, ccna, cisco, asus, tv-link, netgear, nat, network address, NAT, PAT, IP address, ipv4, ipv6, dhcp, wifi, wireless router, rt-ax86u, rt-ax11000, rt-axe16000, rt-axe11000, home network, modem, verizon 5g, cox, Port Forwarding, Network Configuration, Internet Security, Router Settings, Public IP Address, Private IP Address, Remote Access, Gaming, File Sharing

Id: 4WoQm1tGKjo

Length: 8min 0sec (480 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 28 2023