Port Forwarding Overview - ZyXEL Communications LTE Series User Manual

Port Forwarding
A port forwarding set is a list of inside (behind NAT on the LAN) servers, for example, web or FTP, that you
can make visible to the outside world even though NAT makes your whole inside network appear as a
single computer to the outside world.
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See Section on page 127

9.2 Port Forwarding Overview

Use Port Forwarding to forward incoming service requests from the Internet to the server(s) on your local
network. Port forwarding is commonly used when you want to host online gaming, P2P file sharing, or
other servers on your network.
You may enter a single port number or a range of port numbers to be forwarded, and the local IP
address of the desired server. The port number identifies a service; for example, web service is on port 80
and FTP on port 21. In some cases, such as for unknown services or where one server can support more
than one service (for example both FTP and web service), it might be better to specify a range of port
numbers. You can allocate a server IP address that corresponds to a port or a range of ports. Please
refer to RFC 1700 for further information about port numbers.
Note: Many residential broadband ISP accounts do not allow you to run any server processes
(such as a Web or FTP server) from your location. Your ISP may periodically check for
servers and may suspend your account if it discovers any active services at your
location. If you are unsure, refer to your ISP.
Configure Servers Behind Port Forwarding (Example)
Let's say you want to assign ports 21-25 to one FTP, Telnet and SMTP server (A in the example), port 80 to
another (B in the example), a default server IP address of 192.168.1.35 to a third (C in the example), and
a default server IP address of 192.168.1.36 to a fourth (D in the example). You assign the LAN IP addresses
and the ISP assigns the WAN IP address. The NAT network appears as a single host on the Internet.
Chapter 9 Network Address Translation (NAT)
for advanced technical information on NAT.
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