It’s the one thing when I’m configuring things that makes me wince because I know it will give me the business, and I know it shouldn’t, but it does, every time. I have no real idea what I’m doing, what it is, how it works, so of course I’m blindly following instructions like a monkey at a typewriter.
Please guide me into enlightenment.
Ports are just ways for applications to communicate data amongst themselves or other computers, networks, internet etc. They’re represented by a number, and there are well known standards for certain ports, like HTTP web traffic is most commonly over port 80, HTTPS encrypted web traffic is usually over port 443, etc. The reason for ports is it allows the ability to lock down a computer or networked device from external communication (like computers on the same network, or the internet) and only allow certain applications to have outbound or inbound traffic and data communication, thus increasing security from malware, hackers, unwanted snooping, etc.
For example, by leaving the web browsing ports open, but blocking all other ports, you can communicate over the internet, but not share all of your images from your “Pictures” or “Documents” folders on your device, thus keeping you safe.
Every computing device, phone, tablet, etc has ports that can be opened and closed, even the Operating System running on your device, or even your WiFi router. When you’re reading articles about opening or blocking ports, its usually talking about how to open ports on your WiFi router so in incoming or outgoing application connection trying to communicate from/to internet and your computer can establish a connection through your wifi routers and not be blocked. Or how to open those same ports on your Operating System, so the connection can be established from the internet, though your WiFi router, through your OS, to the application running on your computer. Ports are usually blocked by default, and you need to open them, though the standard ones (like web traffic, port 80, 443 are usually defaulted to open for convenience sake)
A VPN, is a Virtual Private Network, it allows you to create a network of computers or devices that aren’t actually on the same network, for example, we could make a VPN between your computer and mine, and they would be able to see each other, transfer files between themselves, etc, just like we were in the same home, on the same WiFi. The VPN’s are established over a port, and use a port to communicate, so you’d most likely need to open the port on your WiFi router and computer to establish the connection.
Most of remote connections for business, are done through a VPN. When you work from home, but are able to see the internal resources from your company, a lot of times its achieved with a VPN.
The word “Private” in Virtual Private Network, means that that the connection is encrypted and people can’t see the traffic going between the devices in this ‘virtual network’ traveling over the internet. People can also use this to their advantage and use a VPN in other ways, such as hiding traffic from illegal behavior, such as pirating movies and music, from their internet provider. Their computer is connected to a random server connected by the VPN, they go to the pirate bay, request to download a movie, the request comes from the other computer connected in the VPN, and is sent to their computer, with their internet provider being none-the-wiser.
Just to clarify, nothing about ports requires wifi to be involved at all. It doesn’t need to be a wifi router, a network doesn’t have to be connected via wifi.
Funfact: doesn’t even require ethernet. Any link that involves an IP will do.
Very true, I just kept saying WiFi router, because for most people’s home networks, even if their device is wired, if they have a wifi router set up, their WiFi router is usually their network firewall as well, so even if your gaming desktop was wired, you’d probably still need to open ports on your WiFi router to make something like a VPN work.
Just seemed like a needlessly confusing specific detail to include as it is not a necessity to have any wifi connectivity at all and might mislead OP/readers into assuming it has some relevance to ports. It should be sufficient to just say router unless the question involves SSIDs or related components specific to that connection method.
Agreed, I fixed it.