Opening or mapping the ports turns out to be one of the solutions for some connection problems, video conferencing, online games, etc. If you are a regular user, you may have heard of this term but don’t know what it is or how to do it.
A port can be compared to a room, which only the people who work in that department enter. For that reason, if they are closed, it causes problems, which can be solved by opening them, thus facilitating computer traffic. There are several brands of the router, either TP-Link or among others that is responsible for sending and processing data, and with the help of the ports it performs this operation in an orderly fashion.
The first thing you should know is that there are 65536 ports which are classified into three different levels which are:
- Known ports: these ports are from 0 to 1023,which are always open, these are reserved for the operating system and used by web servers such as HTTP, POP3 / SMTP e-mail servers and Telnet.
- Registered ports: these are ports used by applications and games installed on your PC,ranging from 1024 to 49151.
- Dynamic or private ports: found from 49152 to 65535 used by P2P servers, games or online applications among others.
Index( )
- How can I open the ports of a router?
- Automatically
- Manually
- What types of router port are there?
- Ports 0 to 1023
- Ports 1024 to 49151
- Ports 49152 to 65535
How can I open the ports of a router?
There are different representations that allow you to open the ports of a router, but this depends on the device or the device . However, there are only two ways to run this process because there is only the automatic way and the manual way.
Automatically
Today routers have a mechanical opening feature called Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) on their ports. What makes it directly have communication with other applications that are compatible to also automatically open the ports redirecting them to each required device.
However, with the automatic form it is allowed that the moment the port is sending or receiving information to remain open, although when there is inactivity within a certain period it is automatically closed in order not to make a manual opening.
In this way, there can be no doubt that the most current routers have a function that the previous Universal Plug and Play or UPnP did not have, this function automatically activates and deactivates the ports of the router you use, thus providing you with greater security. To activate the UPnP function of your router, you must follow the steps that we will give you below.
- Enter the router configuration, write the IP address of your network gateway in the address bar.
- You will enter the router with the username and password created at startup, with this the option to activate UPnP will appear. It has its own menu, otherwise it can be found in the NAT option or in Advanced Configuration.
- You can see if the option is activated, by default it is usually disabled, activate it and save the changes made.
Another procedure similar to this is the DMZ or Demilitarized Zone, which is more recommended for game consoles. This is due to the lack of security it provides, leaving all ports open, which is not recommended.
By performing any of these processes you will see how your network connectivity, videoconferences or online games improve in many ways. You can check if the router ports are active and that the changes were saved as follows.
Manually
To open the routers manually you just have to understand that you have to follow the step by step, since you have to take into account that each one has a distinctive interface. This means that there are differences in all routers including those that are from the same company.
It is necessary to take into account that the menu, their names and the sections to highlight the differences because having a different interface there is no default process to open the port of a router manually.
What you should know is that when entering the router interface configuration, you access NAT, Port Forwarding or Advanced Options. The data required there is completed, that is, the IP of the device to which the information will be sent and the protocol to be used.
After entering the data, the configuration is saved, it is recommended that at the end of the configured and saved process, the router be restarted manually.
This means that in order to carry out this process you must first know your IP address since to make the changes it is necessary to identify it. There are several ways to know it, in Windows you can do it by entering the command prompt and then placing the ipconfig command, this you can even do to open the ports of your Huawei modem or any other brand.
This command will reveal a chain of values there we will come across a default link that will be the IP address.
Each router has a different interface , this can change depending on the manufacturer, we will show you how to do it in a generic way.
- Enter the configuration of your router, she will demand the IP addressfrom there, the importance of knowing it well.
- The second step is to select one of these options: NAT, Port Fowarding, others may also appear, for example as Advanced Options.
- After selecting it, a menu will appear in which you will have to enter data for the port you want to activate. Name, LAN IP Address or WAN IP, Start and End LAN Port, Start and End WAN Port, UDP / TCP Protocol.
- When you finish filling in the port information you want to activate, save the information, it may be necessary to restart the router.
From Mac: Access Network Utility, Port Scan, enter the IP address, Explore, and check the ports you opened. Windows 10: press Windows + R, cmd, Enter, enter the command netstat –an, Enter, a list of ports and protocols will open.
By following the steps we take and by becoming more familiar with them, you can even expand or limit the bandwidth . Since they are similar in a certain way, that way you will get the most out of your network.
What types of router port are there?
There are three clusters of ports to make it easy to locate each one, how it is configured, and what it is called. There are ports 0 to 1023, which are the best known. Ports 1024 through 49151 are also named by the registered ones. Finally there are 49152 to 65535 that are known as private. Taking into account this information, the access and the process for each port is easier.
Ports 0 to 1023
Ports from 0 to 1023 are those that usually remain open because they are assigned to the operating system and the services that each device has.
Likewise, these ports have more common communication protocols than the others, since port 80 is used to allow Internet browsing through HTTP, port 25 has been assigned to the SMTP mail protocol, and port 21 is used. mostly for FTP connections.
Ports 1024 to 49151
This range of ports from 1024 to 49151 are used by applications and gaming platforms as well as by gammers. They are configured automatically when you install those applications.
Ports 49152 to 65535
Those that go from 49152 to 65535 are known as private ports because they are assigned in a distinctive way, since they are used by clients that need to connect to a certain server in a specific way.