chat program behind a router

[Dar Scott]

On Monday, April 8, 2002, at 12:56 PM, Mark Talluto wrote:

> What I think I need to do is get a better understanding on how the 
> settings work for ipnetrouter.  I am the guy who set it up.  I 
> just do not have much knowledge on how it all works.  I have much 
> to learn.

LOL!  I often see documentation, dialog boxes or other 
communication that says "See your System Administrator."  But I am 
the system administrator!

Some routers are hard to set up.  Fortunately, IPNetRouter should 
be easier than most.  I have never used it, but I'm aware of what 
it can do.  It uses a different NAT terminology than I use.  To 
make a connection from the outside to a computer on the LAN, use 
"inbound port mapping."  You should also check your filters in the 
IP Filter to make sure that all kinds of TCP packets can go both 
directions on the ports and IP addresses you need.

With "inbound port mapping" the computer on the outside will then 
try to connect to the router (not the inside computer) on the port 
that will forward to the port used on the inside computer.

> Now putting a server outside the firewall is probably going to be 
> very important to insure that all users can communicate no matter 
> what their situation is.

Note that the above method actually does put the service on the 
Internet.  The service being in the trivial case one of the chat 
clients.

There are cases in which some strict firewalls will still block.  
Some won't allow connections to strange ports.  Some have software 
local to each computer that will only allow certain applications to 
go through the firewall.

Dar Scott