Dummies, Wireless

220
Part IV: Using a Wireless Network
Figure 11-2:
Setting
up port
forwarding.
Setting Up a Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)
If you need to do some special port forwarding and router tweaking to get
your games working, you may find that you’re spending entirely too much
time getting it all up and running. Or you may find that you open what should
be the right ports — according to the game developer — and that things still
just don’t seem to be working correctly. It happens; not all routers are equally
good at implementing port forwarding.
Here’s another approach you can take: Set up a demilitarized zone (DMZ).
This term has been appropriated from the military (think the North and
South Korean borders) by way of the business networking world, where
DMZs are used for devices such as Web servers in corporate networks. In a
home network, a DMZ is a virtual portion of your network that’s completely
outside your firewall. In other words, a computer or device connected to
your DMZ accepts all incoming connections — your NAT router forwards all
incoming connections (on any port) to the computer connected to the DMZ.
You don’t need to configure special ports for specific games because everything
is forwarded to the computer or device you have placed on the DMZ.
Most home routers we know of set up a DMZ for only one of your networked
devices, so this approach may not work if you have two gaming PCs connected
to the Internet. However, for most people, a DMZ does the trick.