NETGEAR WNR3500 Chapter Fine-Tuning Your Network, Allowing Inbound Connections to Your Network

Chapter 5

Fine-Tuning Your Network

This chapter describes how to modify the configuration of the RangeMax Wireless-N Gigabit Router WNR3500 to allow specific applications to access the Internet or to be accessed from the Internet, and how to make adjustments to enhance your network’s performance.

This chapter includes the following sections:

•“Allowing Inbound Connections to Your Network”

•“Configuring Port Forwarding to Local Servers” on page 5-6

•“Configuring Port Triggering” on page 5-9

•“Using Universal Plug and Play” on page 5-12

•“Optimizing Wireless Performance” on page 5-13

•“Configuring Quality of Service” on page 5-14

•“Changing the MTU Size” on page 5-20

•“Optimizing Your Network Bandwidth” on page 5-21

•“Overview of Home and Small Office Networking Technologies” on page 5-23

Allowing Inbound Connections to Your Network

By default, the WNR3500 router blocks any inbound traffic from the Internet to your computers except for replies to your outbound traffic. However, you might need to create exceptions to this rule for the following purposes:

•To allow remote computers on the Internet to access a server on your local network.

•To allow certain applications and games to work correctly when their replies are not recognized by your router.

Your router provides two features for creating these exceptions: port forwarding and port triggering. This section explains how a normal outbound connection works, followed by two examples explaining how port forwarding and port triggering operate and how they differ.

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v1.0, March 2008