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D6400
Hi, I am new to this forum but I have owned a D6400 router for 4 years. According to my logs, I have various unknown IP addresses trying to access port 80 on my router. Attached to this port is a lo...
Thank you for your prompt replies to my question.
I have made the changes to port forwarding as suggested. Thinking about it now, it was an obvious solution but ......... I am wise after the event, thank you to all.
I now realise that much of this stuff is just as I knew it in the 60s and 70s but the terminology has been updated. In my day external ports were cable pairs and internal ports were either equipment numbers (uniselectors) or telephone numbers all jumpered on the MDF or IDF ........happy days.
> Attached to this port means to me [...]
If you don't know much, and you're looking at a page which says "Port
Forwarding", then it might make more sense to talk about "port
forwarding", rather than to invent your own technical terms ("Attached
to this port") which have a meaning to only you.
> I don't know how to set something up on the D6400 to "choose some
> non-default value for the external port?"
How did you specify your current port-forwarding rule? ADVANCED >
Advanced Setup > Port Forwarding / Port Triggering : Add Custom Service?
What did you specify as the "external port"? "80"? Specify some
other external port number. (My example was "6789".)
> I don't know how to "specify the non-default port number in the
> outside-world URL"
> http://<your_puplic_IP_address>:6789
How do you access the thing now? Add ":6789" to your current URL.
> How does "specifying non-equal external and internal ports in a
> port-forwarding rule" help me in this case as I have no idea what it
> means.
You might think of an IP address with a port number as a building
street address with an apartment number. Normally, a web server lives
in apartment 80. Strangers may call your building, and ask for
apartment 80, expecting to talk to a web server.
With port forwarding, the router acts as a concierge, who can
redirect an incoming message to a different apartment (port) in a
different building (IP address). In this example, a message addressed
to your router's public IP address at port "6789" (the external port
number) could be redirected to your (unspecified) "low level heating
controller" at port 80 (the internal port number). That's what port
forwarding does.
The probability of a stranger probing port 80 is high, because that's
where a web server normally lives. The probability of a stranger
probing some odd-ball port, like, say, "6789", is lower, because no one
expects anyone to live there.
> It may not matter, [...]
It doesn't. This is a router problem, not a DSL problem. Why waste
everyone's time with this trivial distraction?
Thank you for your prompt replies to my question.
I have made the changes to port forwarding as suggested. Thinking about it now, it was an obvious solution but ......... I am wise after the event, thank you to all.
I now realise that much of this stuff is just as I knew it in the 60s and 70s but the terminology has been updated. In my day external ports were cable pairs and internal ports were either equipment numbers (uniselectors) or telephone numbers all jumpered on the MDF or IDF ........happy days.
> I have made the changes [...]
I'll take that as "everything works now". Which is good news.
> [...] much of this stuff is just as I knew it in the 60s and 70s but
> the terminology has been updated. [...]Actually, it's (much) worse than that. In the old days, _circuits_
were switched, so, if you were connected, you knew where your message
would go. Now, _packets_ are switched (over common circuits), so every
packet has addresses (source and destination), and you have only a vague
idea how your message gets anywhere. Here, a "port" number really is
just an extension to an address (like an apartment number in a
building). Typically, the address specifies a particular gizmo, and the
port specifies a particular program which is running on the gizmo.
Everything's (more) complicated.