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This is driving me crazy - why is my router still STEALTHED?

I am trying to test some settings on my router that allow certain ports (e.g. 139) to be open for inbound traffic - via port forwarding.

For that, I use a port scan service like ShieldsUp on

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or auditmypc.com.

However, no matter what I do (I even did port forwarding on ALL ports to my test PC (running XP with its firewall turned off), the test results always show ALL ports as stealthed.

Internally (in my LAN) I used a Linux port scanner to verify that my test PC indeed has at least ports 135, 139 and 445 open. They are definitely open on the test PC.

I also temporarily configured my router to set the test PC as a DMZ (on my NETGEAR router it is call "Default DMZ Server") - and indeed the

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test showed those ports as open.

However, I don't understand what is the difference between this "officially labeled" DMZ setting to port forwarding of ALL the ports. Could someone please help me understand this?

For example, is it possible that a DMZ server is being skipped the NAT done by the router? (despite it retaining the internal LAN address?)

Thanks, Alex

Reply to
xp_newbie
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OK - things start making more sense right now: instead of forwarding ALL ports (0..65535) to my test PC, I enabled only 135..445. That effectively made my test PC apear as unstealthed (in ports 139 and

445) to the
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test.

This confirms my understanding that DMZ is nothing more than port forwarding to all usable ports (except for port 0 or some other strange ones like 8 (ICMP)).

Or did I get it completely wrong?

Thanks, Alex

Reply to
xp_newbie

lol,

You got it partially correct, with the exception that "Port Forwarding" and DMZ can be used together, with Port Forwarding taking precedence on which ports are forwarded, and the rest going to the DMZ.

Reply to
Intuitive

Nitpick: ICMP isn't a "port", it's a protocol. Ports are only used in TCP and UDP.

Juergen Nieveler

Reply to
Juergen Nieveler

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