What is port forwarding?

Does anyone know what is port forwarding?

• Quote router has two ip addresses. It has the external ip address, and an internal ip address Quot What is the external IP address the IP address the ISP gives you?And the internal IP address the gatway?

• Answer:

  External IP = From ISP, what the internet sees as your IP Address. Internal IP = From router, it maintains an IP address, as well as every device connected to it. All routers perform a basic hardware firewall. This blocks all ports be default so that information can not get in without approval. Think of a Peephole in a door. Port forwarding is when you tell the router to allow traffic that is received on your external IP address on this port number to be allowed to go to whatever Internal IP you have configured in your Port Forwarding. Think of it as the firewall is a Big Gate or Wall that you are using to keep people out. And Port Forwarding is the digging of the tunnel for what port you want to which computer you want. basic description in about as simple non tech terms as I can get. You can get some good guides based on your router at the url in my sources.