What does port forwarding do?
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To understand the purpose of port forwarding, you have to understand what a Local Area Network (LAN) is and its purpose. A LAN is like a mini internet that connects to the Wide Area Network (WAN). Outside the LAN, nobody can see any of your devices. This is why you can connect your printer to the internet without worrying that someone outside your LAN will print off of it when you don’t want them to. It’s a good security measure. However, what if you DO want your computer to be seen by the outside world? For example, you want to set up a Minecraft server. Nobody will be able to connect to it because it’s not visible. So to solve this, we “trick” outside computers into thinking they’re connecting to your computer by forwarding packets to your router to your computer inside your LAN. So that way, your computer can talk to the outside world, but can remain invisible to hackers and everyone else outside your LAN.
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