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Can someone demystify computer Ports for me? Please? Blocking, unblocking, opening, allowing, VPNs and their effect, what ports are and what they do, step by step, when you have to interact with them? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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It's the one thing when I'm configuring things that makes me wince because I know it will give me the business, and I know it shouldn't, but it does, every time. I have no real idea what I'm doing, what it is, how it works, so of course I'm blindly following instructions like a monkey at a typewriter.

Please guide me into enlightenment.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

A port is basically what it sounds like, a hole in your network to allow traffic to get to your pc

When you forward a port you send all traffic trying to get into that port to the computer you configure it to forward to. I believe forwarding and opening are synonymous, I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong

There are two protocols for transmitting data you can open/close individually, TCP and UDP. Depends on the application, some want one, some want the other, some can use either or some want both

Opening ports allows anyone with your IP address to get at your computer, which means they have a chance to exploit any vulnerabilities there might be in your os, networking stack, software etc, so generally it's a good idea not to leave them open unless absolutely necessary

Personally I use tailscale to get around having to open ports, makes it as if they're all on the same network

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Port forwarding is related to router forwarding all the traffic it gets on specific port to your computer. Port opening is just enabling to communicate via a new port on your computer.

Both can be done irrespective of each other and sometimes they do happens simultaneously. The router could forward the traffic to a new port that you opened on your computer. But they are not synonymous with each other.