Points to note
Let's try something tricky now, specifying a range!
Gosh, that wasn't so hard! If you have to forward both UDP and TCP protocols, you might be able to select "both" as an option. If not, forward the ports for UDP, then do them again for TCP.
For the forwarding settings to take effect, you may need to save and reboot your router. It will probably give you some indication of whether this is necessary.
Points to note
Hopefully now it's clear that forwarding ports isn't actually that hard, it's just a matter of knowing which ports to forward and where to forward them to. Here's a rundown of what you need to remember:
- Consult documentation or the Internet to see if you need any incoming ports open for your game/application/server to work.
- Find out whether they use TCP or UDP protocol.
- Forward the ports to the IP of the machine running the game/application/server.
- You cannot forward the same port to two IPs, except perhaps if they're different protocols (one UDP, the other TCP).
- If the IP of the machine you're forwarding to isn't fixed, you may one day find the forwarding stops working because the machine's IP has changed.
- Outgoing connections don't need port forwarding setting up. A TCP or UDP packet can get out of your LAN onto the Internet without trouble, it's just the other way around that can sometimes be the problem.
- If you forward a port, then the machine you've forwarded to is accessible from the Internet on that port. Make sure you don't forward ports unnecessarily, and for safety you may wish to run a software firewall on that computer.
