Upnp Technical Reference; Nat Traversal; Cautions With Upnp; Upnp And Zyxel - ZyXEL Communications P-660W-Tx User Manual

Chapter 14 Universal Plug-and-Play (UPnP)

14.5 UPnP Technical Reference

This section provides some technical background information about the topics covered in this
chapter.

14.5.1 NAT Traversal

UPnP NAT traversal automates the process of allowing an application to operate through NAT.
UPnP network devices can automatically configure network addressing, announce their
presence in the network to other UPnP devices and enable exchange of simple product and
service descriptions. NAT traversal allows the following:
• Dynamic port mapping
• Learning public IP addresses
• Assigning lease times to mappings
Windows Messenger is an example of an application that supports NAT traversal and UPnP.
See the NAT chapter for more information on NAT.

14.5.2 Cautions with UPnP

The automated nature of NAT traversal applications in establishing their own services and
opening firewall ports may present network security issues. Network information and
configuration may also be obtained and modified by users in some network environments.
All UPnP-enabled devices may communicate freely with each other without additional
configuration. Disable UPnP if this is not your intention.

14.5.3 UPnP and ZyXEL

ZyXEL has achieved UPnP certification from the Universal Plug and Play Forum Creates
UPnP™ Implementers Corp. (UIC). ZyXEL's UPnP implementation supports IGD 1.0
(Internet Gateway Device). At the time of writing ZyXEL's UPnP implementation supports
Windows Messenger 4.6 and 4.7 while Windows Messenger 5.0 and Xbox are still being
tested.
UPnP broadcasts are only allowed on the LAN.
See later sections for examples of installing UPnP in Windows XP and Windows Me as well as
an example of using UPnP in Windows.
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P-660W-Tx v2 User's Guide