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bostonfenix275

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port-forwarding

Hi,
I have a cable modem and a wireless router. We have 4 laptop clients connected. We all use http, which is port 80. I use a direct connect program that uses TCP port 612. I forwarded 612 to my computer using the router's NAT. Why do I need to forward that port to me? Why don't we forward port 80? I know we all use 80, so is that why? The packets get sent everywhere? What if someone else wanted to us that DC program on port 612?

To me, port-forwarding seems like a paradox. I understand why you'd use it: to forward w/e packets are coming through that port to your computer. I know I can only forward a port to one computer, so I don't get why 80 isn't forwarded -- well, more than 1 computer obviosuly.

Does anyone understand what I'm getting at?
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rich255

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bostonfenix275

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Wow, I'm an idiot...duh.

I didn't even think of that -- inbound vs. outbound. I am running an SSH server on my laptop w/ port 22 forwarded to my machine. That means when someone tries to connect to http://OUR.EXTERNAL.IP:22 it will go to my comp....duh.

So say we had 2 machines running web servers...we could do 1 machine on 80, another on 8080, which would mean the URLS:
http://OUR.EXTERNAL.IP ...OR...http://OUR.EXTERNAL.IP:80
AND
http://OUR.EXTERNAL.IP:8080

Thanks for the help, I feel officially stupid :)
Don't kick yourself too hard.  It may be simple, but the problem is there are TONS of simple things to keep track of!

Your're right about the multiple web servers.  Internally you can have them all using port 80, but the outside will need to do forwarding on multiple ports:

extIP:80  ->  PC1:80
extIP:8080 -> PC2:80
extIP:5000 -> PC3:80
and so on...