What is port forwarding?

What's port forwarding and how does it relate to netplay?

• I'm trying to netplay with a friend, but for some reason I can't connect to him while he can connect to me. People said it's a port forwarding issue, and I've no idea what that is / how to fix that, can someone explain?

• Answer:

  Port forwarding allows anyone who uses that port access to your computer. You see every router these days has a hardwired firewall which blocks access to your/his computer except to ports you authorize. If you don't authorize any, then IE or Firefox will do it for you using port 80. That is why you can access the internet, but sneak attacks using other ports are denied. Your/his router has no way of knowing your friend is a friend unless you tell it he is. Find out which port netplay uses and allow anyone who uses it permission to access your computer. I hope Netplay has safeguards in place limiting unauthorized usage, or else you'll find ANYONE using netplay has access. You have to go into the router setup and tell it to port forward and select the right ports (I'm sure netplay has instructions and the correct ports to authorize).