Port Forwarding - AudioCodes MP-202 User Manual

12.3

Port Forwarding

In its default state, the gateway blocks all external users from connecting to or
communicating with your network. Therefore the system is safe from hackers who may try
to intrude on the network and damage it. However, you may want to expose your network
to the Internet in certain limited and controlled ways in order to enable some applications to
work from the LAN (game, voice and chat applications, for example) and to enable
Internet-access to servers in the home network. The Port Forwarding feature supports both
of these functionalities.
The 'Port Forwarding' screen lets you define the applications that require special handling
by the gateway. You must select the application's protocol and the local IP address of the
computer that will be using or providing the service. If required, you can add new protocols
in addition to the most common ones provided by the gateway.
For example, to use an FTP application on one of your PCs, select 'FTP' from the list and
enter the local IP address or host name of the designated computer; all FTP-related data
arriving at the gateway from the Internet is then forwarded to the specified computer.
Similarly, to grant Internet users access to servers inside your home network, you must
identify each service that you want to provide and the PC that will provide it. For example,
to host a Web server inside the home network you must select 'HTTP' from the list of
protocols and enter the local IP address or host name of the computer that will host the
Web server. When an Internet user points her browser to the external IP address of the
gateway, it forwards the incoming HTTP request to the computer that is hosting the Web
server.
Additionally, port forwarding enables you to redirect traffic to a different port instead of the
one to which it was designated. If for example you have a Web server running on your PC
on port 8080 and you want to grant access to this server to anyone who accesses the
gateway via HTTP, do the following:
Define a port forwarding rule for the HTTP service, with the PC's IP or host name.
Specify 8080 in the field 'Forward to Port'.
All incoming HTTP traffic will now be forwarded to the PC running the Web server on port
8080.
When setting a port forwarding service, you must ensure that the port is not already in use
by another application, which may stop functioning. A common example is when using SIP
signaling in Voice over IP - the port used by the gateway's VoIP application (5060) is the
same port on which port forwarding is set for LAN SIP agents.
MP-202 Telephone Adapter 146
MP-202
LTRT-50604