Which statement best describes the purpose of port forwarding?

Which statement best describes the purpose of port forwarding?

• A. Encrypting an external connection to an internal resource.
• B. Mapping an external port to an internal host/port to allow external access to a specific service behind NAT.
• C. Assigning dynamic IP addresses to clients on the network.
• D. Filtering traffic based on destination IP address.

Answer: (B)

Port forwarding is the process of allowing external devices to reach a specific service inside a private network by creating a mapping from an external port on the router’s public IP to an internal IP address and port. This enables inbound traffic from the internet to be directed to a chosen machine behind NAT. For example, you might map external port 8080 to internal 192.168.1.100:80. When someone connects to your public IP on port 8080, the router forwards that traffic to 192.168.1.100 on port 80, letting a web server hosted inside the network be reachable from outside. It’s not about encrypting connections (that would be VPN/TLS), nor about giving clients dynamic IP addresses (that’s DHCP), nor about filtering by destination IP (that’s firewall or ACL rules). It’s specifically about translating an outside port to an inside host/port so a service behind NAT can be accessed externally.

Port forwarding is the process of allowing external devices to reach a specific service inside a private network by creating a mapping from an external port on the router’s public IP to an internal IP address and port. This enables inbound traffic from the internet to be directed to a chosen machine behind NAT. For example, you might map external port 8080 to internal 192.168.1.100:80. When someone connects to your public IP on port 8080, the router forwards that traffic to 192.168.1.100 on port 80, letting a web server hosted inside the network be reachable from outside. It’s not about encrypting connections (that would be VPN/TLS), nor about giving clients dynamic IP addresses (that’s DHCP), nor about filtering by destination IP (that’s firewall or ACL rules). It’s specifically about translating an outside port to an inside host/port so a service behind NAT can be accessed externally.