Now we will deal with the question of what open ports are. This issue should be sorted out if Internet traffic begins to "suddenly go" into the unknown. First of all, you should see where, which program and what exactly it uses. Based on this information, you can correct the situation.
Network applications
There is a situation when an application that uses the network to launch it does not want to work. If so, it is worth
checking whether the ports that the program uses for its own work
are open . Situations when you need to find out a list of open ports occur quite often.
To view the list, you must use either third - party port scanners or the standard utility of Windows and Linux operating systems: netstat. It starts from the usual command line. First, call the command line. There are two ways to achieve this. As for the first option, go to the "Start" menu to the "Run" item.
In the window that appears, enter “cmd”, then press “Enter”. Another method is to start the necessary command line “do it yourself”, that is, by going to the “System32” folder, use the program “cmd.exe”.
Netstat
To find out which ports are open, in the next step, run the “netstat” utility. For this purpose, in the command line that was launched earlier, enter "netstat", and then press "Enter".
Those users for whom this information is not enough can access the capabilities of this utility by running it with the –h special key, in other words, try entering “netstat -h” in the command line. In the case of using the “netstat -b” key, the utility will show open ports, as well as applications that use these ports for their own work.
There is another useful key "netstat 5". If you use it, you will see not only open ports, but also the ability to stream information, new data will be displayed every 5 seconds. To stop the appearance of information with the specified key, you must use the keyboard shortcut "Ctrl + C".
Studying the information received
A command prompt window will show open ports. It will look as follows: directly the
command line will be divided into 4 parts. The left column will display the protocol name, the second - the domain, and after the colon the open port itself, the third part - the external address, the fourth - the state.
Opening ports on Windows
Next, we will look at
how to open a Windows
port . Users can perform the open port operation on Windows 7 and Vista by using standard tools of the operating system itself without involving special software from third-party developers.
We press the “Start” button to bring up the main menu of the system, go to the item “Control Panel” in order to initiate the procedure for opening ports in the Windows firewall.
We specify the item "Security", we pass to the section "Windows Firewall". We select the item called "Advanced Settings", which places the left side of the application window. After that, enter the administrator password. It must be entered in the appropriate field after the authorization window appears.
We open the link that talks about allowing the program to run through the Windows firewall, and select the section on the rules for incoming connections. We specify an item called "Create a rule", run the function "Add Port" to perform the operation of opening the specified port. Click the "Next" button, enter a name that allows you to associate the specified open port.
For this, the corresponding field "Name" is provided. Enter the number of the selected port in the corresponding field “Port”, click the “Next” button. Specify the desired protocol (it can be TCP or UDP) in the next dialog box, which is dedicated to ports and protocols. We apply the checkbox for the item “Allow connection” by going to the next window “Actions”.
Final stage
We apply the checkboxes for all the fields in the next dialog box called “Profile”, click the “Finish” button to apply the selected changes. Click the button called “Change Region” to select the parameter for the number of computers that have permission to use the selected port. Specify the desired value.
We repeat the above procedures for each of the ports to be opened. We reboot the computer to apply the selected changes. It should be remembered that the described algorithm of actions will allow you to open ports only in the firewall of a personal computer, but it is not connected in any way with the permissions of a particular Internet connection provider.
To solve such problems, you need to contact a representative of your provider company directly. When connected to the Internet, the system allocates to the programs that work with the network the ports through which it is received and sent data. Ports can be not only open, but also closed.