this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2025
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No Stupid Questions
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If you are at home and your computer is connected to a router of some kind and the router in turn is connected to the internet, that is how you get access to the internet.
For something on the internet to connect to your computer you get a problem. You want this thing on the internet to connect to port X on your computer, but it can't see your computer because the router is the one exposed to the internet. So the thing on the internet can connect to port X on the router... but you need it to end up on your computer.
This is where port forwarding comes in. It is a rule in your router saying "when something try to connect to port X, give it instead to on port X".
Edit to add: Note that in general you do not want random stuff on the internet to be able to do this. If you self-host something sensitive or personal, or just anything really, on this port, now an attacker can reach it. It may be password protected, or something more secure, but they are one step closer to getting to your computer.
When it commes to torrents, I think there is some part of DHT which needs some port forwarding. But I do not know the details.