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Your Netgear router will automatically block any incoming connection attempts to your private network. This means that you won’t be able to host any servers, or connect with any devices (such as CCTV cameras), outside of your private network. But there is a solution to all these problems, and that is to port forward your Netgear router. If you’re wondering how to do that, then the following guide is here to help you out.
Before you start port forwarding, make sure you have the following info:
Once you’ve collected everything you need, you’ll only need to follow the steps mentioned below to port forward your Netgear router:
That’s it! When the changes have taken effect, you can start hosting your server or application on the network and provide your friends with the hostname that you’re using as well as the port number, which should look something like this, ‘hostname.domain.com: 25565.’
In order to run port forwarding successfully, you will need to allow access to specific ports on your firewall. The default port for Netgear routers is:
TCP Port: 80
Forwarding ports is definitely a challenging task for newbies especially considering that a single mistake can mess up your router’s firmware settings. You can choose to avoid doing all the manual work by automating the entire port forwarding process using PureVPN’s Port Forwarding add-on.
With this add-on, you don’t just automate the entire port forwarding process, but you also get to avoid persistent issues such as CGNAT when connecting to devices on your network. Moreover, using the port forwarding add-on is a lot safer compared to the conventional means of setting up everything you can.
Wondering what else you can do with PureVPN’s Port Forwarding add-on? P2p file sharing, hosting game servers, avoiding IP blacklisting, we can go on and on and on.
A lot of ISPs (internet service providers) now perform CGNAT (Carrier-grade Network Address Translation) so they can conserve bandwidth and assign a single IP address to more than one user on their network. But CGNAT is bad for port forwarding because it makes it difficult to open ports on your router.
There is a way to get around the CGNAT issue. Yes, you guessed it right. It’s by using PureVPN’s Port Forwarding add-on. Here’s how you can make it work:
This is easy. Just type in your router’s IP add address into your web browser and navigate to the Advanced or Firewall section. Finally, click on the “Add Custom Service” button.
This depends on the server or application that you wish to use because each application uses separate ports to connect to the network. You can check the documentation of the server or application, or search on google to learn about which ports to open.
Port forwarding is an exceptionally useful feature if you know how to use it. Through port forwarding, you can connect to devices and servers on your private networks even when you’re outside somewhere and not connected to it.
The guide shown above does its best to teach you how to port forward your Netgear router. And to automate the whole process in a more secure manner, you should consider using PureVPN’s Port Forwarding add-on.