6 ways to make use of port mapping on your home network

While connecting to self-hosted services like a password manager from inside your home network is easy, being able to access those services from outside your home network while staying safe is a trickier proposition. You don’t want to open up the floodgates to let the entire internet access your home network, even if you’re monitoring traffic, so setting up port forwarding is the way to go. Here are some of the main reasons you’d want to use port forwarding or port mapping when building your home network.

6

To self-host services

You don’t want everything in your network open on the internet

Self-hosting apps and services like Minecraft servers are a good way to learn valuable networking skills while reducing your reliance on cloud services and subscriptions. But every service needs a way to communicate outside your home network, and that’s done by opening specific ports for them to listen on. While you could let UPnP handle things, it’s better from both a security and knowledge point of view to use port mapping, so your router sends the incoming traffic to the appropriate self-hosted service.

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5

To use a reverse proxy

Keep your network topology and services behind one IP address

While you could do port mapping in your router, if you have multiple self-hosted apps running, it’s a better idea to set up a reverse proxy and handle the port mapping in that instead. This simplifies your administration overhead, as you only have to change details in one place. This also lets you connect to your home network using a single port, and then the reverse proxy will handle routing the packets to the service you’re trying to access. On top of the simplified port mapping, you can also set up a firewall with rules and conditions, add SSL support for encryption, and load balancing if you have multiple servers on your home network.

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4

For your home security cameras

Access your home security feeds from anywhere

If you’ve built your own home security system, you probably already have a pretty deep understanding of port mapping. That’s because, instead of proprietary cloud-based storage for your camera feed footage, you’ll have an on-site NVR or DVR on your home network. The only way to access that footage from your PC or when you’re away from your home network is by setting up a series of port forwards to expose the necessary ports. Otherwise, your network’s firewall will reject any attempts to view it. It’s also crucial for live viewing of your system, like if you get notifications of motion on your property while you’re not home.

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3

Because it’s time you turned UPnP off

It’s a security risk, and you probably don’t need it anymore

Pretty much every consumer router has UPnP enabled by default, which makes sense because it essentially handles port mapping automatically without the user’s intervention. However, because of its automatic nature, UPnP can be a security nightmare and can open up your network to bad actors. Thankfully, the number of services that actually need UPnP enabled nowadays is small, as most have changed their networking to using NAT punching instead, which is more secure.

Since UPnP handles port forwards for you, as soon as you turn it off you might find some services need manual port mapping to be added. Maybe. I turned UPnP off months ago, and I’ve not run into a single service that had issues communicating with the internet, but that might be different depending on your network needs.

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2

So you can use remote access apps

Use your local network from anywhere with the right combination

If you have a home lab with self-hosted services and want to connect to it remotely, you’ll need to open some ports to the internet. Whether you’re using OpenVPN, WireGuard, or any of the other countless ways for remote access, setting up port mapping is essential for your devices to connect to your home network while you’re away from it. It’s still important to implement other security features, like making sure only trusted devices can connect to your network, but the most important factor is the port forwarding rules to make that connection happen.

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1

For multiplayer gaming

Fix annoying connectivity issues with a few port forwards

Many people use port mapping on a daily basis in multiplayer gaming. Whether using self-hosted game servers on a NAS device, connecting to a centralized gaming server hosted by the developers, or using the current peer-to-peer (p2p) model for multiplayer lobbies, some level of port forwarding is necessary so that all the players can see each other in-game. While most new multiplayer games use NAT punching or relay servers, some older titles still need port forwarding so they can work properly. It’s less of a consideration unless you’re self-hosting game servers, but the occasional title does require it even if you’re using their servers.

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Knowing how to port forward is a valuable skill for maintaining your home network

Port mapping is a useful skill, especially if you’ve turned off UPnP for security reasons. Knowing how to port forward for self-hosted services, proxies, and remote access is important in today’s networking landscape, where more advanced services will require more setup knowledge. Plus, if you want to mess around with self-hosted game servers for your friends, it’s a necessity so that you can all connect to the same world.