Gaming WHAT IS PORT FORWARDING? UNBLOCK YOUR PORTS NOW

[baronchrist]

After researching and going through google, I got a little bit about Port Forwarding.

My ISP is such a loser that it wasn't unblocking my ports so I had to do it on my own.

IMO, ISPs most of the times blocks some specific ports which cause you hosting a local server on your PC and other players can't connect to your server. So, forwarding/unblocking the ports on your router enables you.

I came across this guide which was really helpful for me understanding it.

Source: Port Forwarding

 

[Originality]

But don’t unblock all your ports, or you’ll be open to anybody who wants to hack into your network.

Also, ports have nothing to do with your ISP, and entirely to do with your home router.

 

[migles]

port blocking is good, it prevents outsiders from hacking in your network\pc
most software do use UPnP which automatically does the needing port opening for ya in the shadows. unless you are hosting a server of some kind, you dont usually require to open the ports manually.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

After researching and going through google, I got a little bit about Port Forwarding.

My ISP is such a loser that it wasn't unblocking my ports so I had to do it on my own.

IMO, ISPs most of the times blocks some specific ports which cause you hosting a local server on your PC and other players can't connect to your server. So, forwarding/unblocking the ports on your router enables you.

I came across this guide which was really helpful for me understanding it.

Source: Port Forwarding

It's got nothing to do with your ISP, nor does it have anything to do with unblocking.
Your router doesn't know where to send the data unless you tell it which ports to forward to which device, hence "port forwarding".
A lot of software these days will do this automatically using UPnP or NAT-PMP, that is if it's enabled in your router. But far from all software does, especially older software, so it's still sometimes needed to do it manually.

 

[jrobertdobson]

Funny I see this here today... I have several IoT devices. RPi's, ESP's,Blynk servers, and such that just stopped working a little while ago. Well, I got a new PC, and went to set up moonlight for streaming and it said all ports were blocked...WTF?
I go to log into my router/modem...NOTHING. I can't access it, factory reset, still nothing... Call my ISP. They no longer allow access to modems. I have to give them my desired ports, WiFi SSID and password for them to enter.
BIG WTF!!!???
My ISP is TruVista. Looking into any other options I have. This is unacceptable to me, and should be to any customer.

 

[FAST6191]

Re "nothing to do with ISPs"

Depending upon where you are in the world and what type of connection you have then ISPs may disallow traffic on certain ports, mostly 25 for the spam (not that most servers will accept anything from a dynamic range port 25 any more) but some will do 80 as well ( http://www.meridianoutpost.com/resources/articles/well-known-tcpip-ports.php ), or indeed put your/their router's config page on it. They will also tend to be very reluctant to allow traffic on them as well. Some will refer to this as blocking, not my first choice of term .

 

[Originality]

If an ISP were blocking ports for me, I would ask them to make the modem a DMZ so I can allow my router to handle all NAT/ports/firewall rules and configure it myself. I’ve got a good router (Asus), far better than the PoS that ISPs usually provide (in my case, that’d be a BT HomeHub3).

But until now, I’ve never heard of it happening before. I always figured ISPs were very hands off about the whole thing because the more they try to control things, the more time and money they waste receiving phone calls about it.

 

[Pleng]

Whether port forwarding has anything to do with your ISP depends on your ISP/package. Some ISPs where I am use enterprise level NAT which means you share an IP address with others, and if you want to port forward you are given just a few port numbers that you can use. This happened to me when I changed ISPs; I had to pay extra for a public IP.

 

[jrobertdobson]

This happened within the last few months. unfortunately their modems are outdated crap, and the ''supported" list is older, like 10y old stuff. Found out I can tell them to make it just a bridge, so I am gonna get a wired router for the basement, and use the nighthawk for wireless. Then I can control things again.