Port forwarding allows you to route traffic coming to a specific port on your router to a device of your choice on your network. If you are using any servers such as email and games, you need to learn how to forward ports in order for this software to work on your computer.
If port forwarding is not enabled, traffic for these servers will linger on your router and never reach the desired device on your local network. With all of the port forwarding tutorials available, it’s easy to configure it on your router no matter what router you have.
When doing so, make sure that you have configured port forwarding so that only certain IP addresses are allowed access to these ports. You don’t want anyone on the Internet to access your open ports.
Set a static IP address for your device
Before proceeding and enabling port forwarding on your router, you need to assign a static IP address to your machine. This is because when forwarding a port, you need to specify the IP address of the device to which traffic should be routed. This must be the device you want to receive traffic to.
- On your Windows computer, press the Windows + R keys at the same time, type cmd and press Enter.
- When the Command Prompt window opens, type the following command and press Enter. It will show the status of your network.
ipconfig / all
- You should see your network information in a window open on your screen. You should write down the following things as you will need them in the next steps of this guide. Then close the window.
1) IP address
2) Subnet mask
3) Default gateway
4) Preferred DNS server
5) Alternative DNS server - Use Cortana’s search box to find and open Control Panel. Click “View Network Status and Tasks” in the main interface.
- Find and click the Change adapter settings option in the left sidebar.
- If you have multiple network adapters, you will see all of them on this screen. You want to right-click the one you are using to connect to the Internet and select Properties.
- On the next screen, select the option labeled Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP / IPv4) and click the Properties button.
- On the next screen, you can assign a static IP address to your computer. Enable the Use the following IP address option and it will allow you to enter your values ??in the input fields.
- Fill in the fields with the values ??that you wrote down earlier in the Command Prompt window in this tutorial.
- Click OK to save your changes.
- Open your router’s settings page, which is usually located at 192.168.1.1.
- Log in to your router using the default logins if you haven’t changed them. It should be admin and admin for both fields.
- Click “Forwarding” at the top to open the forwarding settings screen.
- Click “Port Forwarding” on the left sidebar and you can forward the port. Enter the following information in the appropriate fields on the screen.
Start Port – Enter the start of the ports you want to forward.
Ending Port is the end of your port range.
LAN IP – enter the static IP address of your computer.
Protocol – you can choose according to your requirements. If you are not sure, select “Both”.
Enable – check the box - Finally, click OK at the bottom to save your changes.
- Open your router settings, select Firewall and select Filter Setup.
- Enable the default. data settings and set the following parameters:
Direction – WAN LAN / DMZ / RT / VPN
Source IP – select Single Address or Range Address.
Start IP Address – Enter the IP address that can access your ports.
Ending IP Address – Enter the ending IP address in the range that can access your ports.
Destination Port – Enter the forwarded port. - Then click Next.
- Select Go Immediately and click Next and Finish.
- Create a new filtering rule and enter your port in the Destination Port field. Click Next and select Block Immediately.
When assigning an IP address to your computer, you need to make sure it is slightly away from your current IP address range. The reason is that if you reboot your machines, your router might assign your chosen IP address to another device on your network, which will cause an IP conflict on your system.
Just in case your current IP address is 192.168.1.105, assign your computer something like 192.168.1.140. This will prevent IP conflict.
– /
How to move forward on your router
Now that your computer has a static IP address assigned, you can go ahead and forward ports using our port forwarding steps below.
The steps may differ slightly depending on the router used. However, you should be able to find the parameters you want as they will have similar names.
The ports you selected are now redirected to your specified IP address. Any traffic that is sent to these ports on your network will be directed directly to the IP address of your local network, which is your computer.
Apps or software that asked you to redirect should now work without issue.
Restrict IP addresses from using the open port
Forwarded ports can be accessed by anyone on the Internet. You want to restrict access so that only certain authorized IP addresses can use these ports.
Make sure the rules are listed in the order in which you created them in the steps above.
The first rule checks the IP address and only allows it if it is one of the IP addresses you allow. If the IP address does not match, the following rule will be applied, which blocks all traffic to the specified port.
–