Hi seafsee,

I think I can answer the first part but not the second, so you will have to wait for Oldfrog to answer the second.

Good job, Taz, that was totally correct. The Remote Management refers to managing the router from the WAN side. This would be useful if you were administering a network using multiple routers but needed to be able to manage all of them from a single point. In a typical home network with a single router this should definitely be turned off.

The answer to the second question will be answered when we look at the next tab, Advanced|Port Range Forwarding and there will be a couple of possible solutions.

_________________
MS MVP Security 2006-2008

All right, here we go:

Forwarding:

I have nothing on this page. On the UPnP forwarding button I clicked and it looks to me that it is just telling me what ports are for FTP, TelNet,
SMTP, ect.

When I click on the Port triggering it shows me one application and that is email. Shows me the triggering port and Incoming port .

For some reason I am remembering this page from something but I don't know where from.

Question: My son had a online game. He played it and every 10 minutes it would say he is disconnected from the server. When I called for support, they told me I needed a range of ports open and I needed to change that in my router to allow. Now, where is that done? And is that safe to do? I told my son he could not play the game and to get a different one because I was not opening the ports.

Okay, Port Forwarding. As Taz has noted there are three areas under this tab.

Port Range Forwarding allows you to direct all requests for a specific application or service to a designated system on the network. For this to work, the designated system has to have a static IP address rather than on assigned through DHCP. This is mostly used in situations where you have a server behing the router, serving DHCP, FTP, mail, or something like that. You could conceivably use this for opening gaming applications but there is an easier way called the "DMZ"

UPnP stands for Universal Plug and Play, and is a decent idea that is still some time off. You do not want to enable this.

Port Triggering is a little different. In this case a static IP is not required. I would be really interested in hearing what your router shows in that box, as I am not really sure how it works.

_________________
MS MVP Security 2006-2008

When I click on the Port Triggering button a box pops up and has on column for Applications and the only thing I have listed as an application is email.

The second set of columns is called Trigger Port Range and in those boxes is 25 ~ 25 for the email application. The last two columns is called Incoming Port Range and in those boxes is 113 ~ 113. That is all I have in Port Triggering and that tells me all my outgoing email is going out on port 25 and all my incoming is coming in on port 113.

Hmmm, I am not understanding the 113 at all. 25 is certainly SMTP, but POP3 is 110. I will have to look into that one a bit deeper.

_________________
MS MVP Security 2006-2008

I shall post before I start my beer!

Dynamic routing:

Working Mode: Gateway is selected. My other choice would be Router.

Dynamic routing:
TX: disabled
RX: disabled

A button that says "Show Routing Table" and this is what is in it:

Destin. LAN IP SubNet Mask Default Gateway Hop count Interface
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 My IP to Rout?? 1 WAN
My IP to Rout?? 255.255.240.0 0.0.0.0 1 WAN
192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 0.0.0.0 1 LAN

Dynamic routing is a pretty cool thing although you won't see the full effect in a home network. We can dispense with this tab and the following one (Static Routing) in one discussion.

Static Routing is the old way, in which each router in a network had to have all of its routing instructions entered by hand. This was very tedious and became an administrative nightmare in large networks.

Dynamic Routing uses the Routing Information Protocol (RIP) to sniff out the entire network topology and build its tables without intervention. The dynamic part comes in when a router is either removed from or added to the network. The routing tables will be rebuilt automatically to adjust to the change. That is way cool!

_________________
MS MVP Security 2006-2008

Oh yeah, I remember that from one of my networking classes. It is cool.

My absence should no longer be necessary and my apologies for being gone. We were having a problem with Verizon DSL and the router and still don't know what the problem is/was and tech support was of little help, so I was stuck with sharing my daughters connection. Only 1 of us would be able to connect at a time, so I checked in when able to, but I apparently missed the last few entries.
I am now on a wireless Linksys, but we are connected with wires at the moment. Will post any differences I find.

_________________

OK,

DMZ Host is next tab.

I know this means Demilitarized Zone. I am not sure about this, but isn't it for when you want to have another comuter/server that you want to use as a............say web server or mail server?? So that it is seperate from your LAN?

Okay, DMZ basically allows you to bypass the firewall for one specific system in your net. You have to assign a static IP address to it and then use the DMZ tab to exempt it. This is primarily useful for when you are running a server behind the router. If you are hosting a multiplayer game, for example, you should be in the DMZ. Any system placed there has access to all TCP/IP ports.

If one is interested in one particular game, then it would pay to find the specific ports used by that game and use a static IP address and port forwarding to open them up to that system. If one plays a lot of different games or serves games, then the DMZ is a better way to go.

_________________
MS MVP Security 2006-2008

Ok, so you say that the system has access to all TCP/IP ports. And you mean all ports outgoing, What about incoming?? Is the system in the DMZ zone still protected and hidden by the router?

No, it is totally outside the router's firewall. You would definitely want a software firewall on a system in the DMZ. All that you are really losing is the NAT.

_________________
MS MVP Security 2006-2008

Next,

Mac Address clone Tab:

Ah...........why would one change the WAN mac address of the router?