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A non-technical explanation of Port Forwarding or Port Mapping

Here’s a non-technical explanation of port forwarding:

Your home network is like a small community. Normally, the entrances (the ports) to your home network are closed to anything from the Internet that tries to control anything on your home network. These entrances are kept closed by the mayor and postmaster (your router).

When you enable port forwarding (sometimes called port mapping), your router will open one of these entrances only to those who have the proper “key.” In this case, the SlingPlayer wants to enter. To make sure that the entrance is open only to the right people and to limit their access, SlingPlayer forwards the unique Slingbox ID, along with your Slingbox password. When this forwarded information gets to your router, it opens the entrance (the port).

That's port forwarding in a nutshell!

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