You can configure network ports forwarding in all Windows versions without using third-party tools. Using a port forwarding rule, you can redirect an incoming TCP connection (IPv4 or IPv6) from the local TCP port to any other port number, or even to a port on a remote computer. Moreover, it is not necessary for Windows to have a service that listens on a specific TCP port. Windows port forwarding is most commonly used to bypass firewalls or to hide an internal host or service from the external network (NAT/PAT).
In the Linux world, port forwarding is configured quite simply using iptables or firewalld. On Windows Server systems, the Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) is typically used to configure port redirections. However, there is an easier way to configure the port forwarding, which works well in any Windows version.
How to Configure Port Forwarding on Windows 10 using Netsh Portproxy?
You can configure port forwarding in Windows using the Portproxy mode of the Netsh command. The command syntax is as follows:
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenaddress=localaddress listenport=localport connectaddress=destaddress connectport=destport
where
- listenaddress – is a local IP address to listen for incoming connection (useful if you have multiple NICs or multiple IP addresses on one interface);
- listenport – local listening TCP port number (the connection is waiting on);
- connectaddress – is a local or remote IP address (or DNS name) to which you want to redirect incoming connection;
- connectport – is a TCP port to which the connection from
listenport
is forwarded to.
netsh interface portproxy add
v4tov6
/v6tov4
/v6tov6
options, you can create port forwarding rules between IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.Let’s suppose our task i is to make the RDP service to respond on a non-standard port, for example 3340 (the port can be changed in the settings of the Remote Desktop service, but we are using RDP to make it easier to demonstrate port forwarding). To do this, we need to redirect incoming traffic from TCP port 3340 to another local port – 3389 (this is the default RDP port number).
netstat -na|find "3340"
Alternatively, you can check that the port is not listening locally using the PowerShell cmdlet Test-NetConnection:
Test-NetConnection -ComputerName localhost -Port 3340
To create a port forwarding rule on Windows 10, run a command prompt as an administrator and run the following command:
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=3340 listenaddress=10.1.1.110 connectport=3389 connectaddress=10.1.1.110
Where 10.10.1.110 – the current IP address of this computer.
Now, use the netstat tool to check that Windows is now listening on local port 3340:
netstat -ano | findstr :3340
IPv6 support must be enabled on the network interface for which the port forwarding rule is created.
These are the prerequisites for the correct operation of port forwarding. Without the IP Helper service and without IPv6 support enabled, the port redirection won’t work.
To make port forwarding work on Windows Server 2003/XP, you must additionally set the IPEnableRouter parameter to 1 in the registry key HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip\Parameters.
You can find out what process is listening on the specified port using its PID (in our example, the PID is 636):
tasklist | findstr 636
Let’s try to connect to this port from a remote computer using any RDP client. Port 3340 should be specified as the RDP port number. It is specified after the colon following the RDP server address. For example, 10.10.1.110:3340
The RDP connection should be established successfully.
If you want to forward an incoming TCP connection to a remote computer, use the following command:
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=3389 listenaddress=0.0.0.0 connectport=3389 connectaddress=192.168.100.101
This rule will redirect all incoming RDP traffic (from local TCP port 3389) from this computer to a remote host with an IP address 192.168.1.100.
Managing Port Forwarding Rules in Windows
netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name=”forwarded_RDPport_3340” protocol=TCP dir=in localip=10.1.1.110 localport=3340 action=allow
Or using the New-NetFirewallRule PowerShell cmdlet:
New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "forwarder_RDP_3340" -Direction Inbound -Protocol TCP –LocalPort 3340 -Action Allow
When creating an incoming firewall rule for port 3340 via Windows Defender Firewall graphical interface, no program needs to be associated with it. This port is only listened by the network driver.
You can create any number of Windows port forwarding rules. All netsh interface portproxy rules are persistent and are stored in the system after a Windows restart.
To display a list of all active TCP port forwarding rules on Windows, run the command:
netsh interface portproxy show all
In our case there is only one forwarding rule from local port 3340 to 3389:
Listen on ipv4: Connect to ipv4: Address Port Address Port --------------- ---------- --------------- ---------- 10.1.1.110 3340 10.1.1.110 3389
netsh interface portproxy dump
#======================== # Port Proxy configuration #======================== pushd interface portproxy reset add v4tov4 listenport=3340 connectaddress=10.1.1.110 connectport=3389 popd # End of Port Proxy configuration
To remove a specific port forwarding rule:
netsh interface portproxy delete v4tov4 listenport=3340 listenaddress=10.1.1.110
To remove all existing mapping rules and completely clear the port forwarding rules table:
netsh interface portproxy reset
connectaddress
.
You can use Windows Server with the RRAS and NAT role installed to configure port forwarding for UDP traffic. You can configure port forwarding between server interfaces using the graphical snap-in (rrasmgmt.msc
) or with the command:
netsh routing ip nat add portmapping Ethernet1 udp 0.0.0.0 53 192.168.100.100 53
Another portproxy feature is an opportunity to make it look like any remote network service is running locally.
For example, let’s redirect the connection from the local port 5555 to a remote HTTP server with IP address 157.166.226.25 (CNN website):
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=5555 connectport=80 connectaddress= 157.166.226.25 protocol=tcp
Now if you go to http://localhost:5555/ in your browser, the CNN Start page will open. So despite the browser is accessing the local computer, it opens a page from an external web server.
Port forwarding rules can also be used to forward a port from the external IP address of a physical NIC to a port of a virtual machine running on the same host. In Hyper-V, you can configure port forwarding on a Virtual Switch level (see below).
Windows cannot forward a range of TCP ports. If you need to forward multiple ports, you will have to manually create multiple portproxy forwarding rules. The easiest way is to generate a list of netsh interface portproxy add
commands with different port numbers in notepad and then paste them into the command prompt for execution.
Port Forwarding in Hyper-V Server
When using the Hyper-V role on your computer (it can be installed on both Windows 10 and Windows Server, or as a free Hyper-V Server), you can configure DNAT port forwarding rules using PowerShell. Suppose you want to redirect all https traffic that your Hyper-V host receives to the IP address of the virtual machine running on the host. To do this, use the Hyper-V StaticMapping commands.
First you need to create a Virtual Switch with NAT:
New-VMSwitch -Name "HTTPS-NAT" -SwitchType NAT -NATSubnetAddress 192.168.100.0/24
Then you need to connect the necessary VM to the specified vswitch and enable the address translation rule for all virtual machines connected through this Hyper-V virtual switch:
New-NetNat -Name HTTPS-NAT -InternalIPInterfaceAddressPrefix 192.168.100.0/24
Add-NetNatStaticMapping -ExternalIPAddress "0.0.0.0/24" -ExternalPort 443 -Protocol TCP -InternalIPAddress "192.168.100.77" -InternalPort 443 -NatName HTTPS-NAT
After executing these PowerShell commands, all HTTPS traffic that comes to port 443 of the Hyper-V host will be forwarded to the private IP address of the virtual machine.
25 comments
[…] In Microsoft Windows, starting from Windows XP, there is a built-in ability to set up network ports forwarding (port forwarding). Due to it, any connection […]
Man you saved my life! I have spent literally weeks for several sites that we host, trying everything. Looks like Windows Server 2016 isn’t best suited for hosting files outside .asp file domain (Node.js for example).
Hi, this is a good article.
I would like to ask if there is any mechanism to not only forward but also to copy data? For example, my server listen to TCP port 8845 and will do something when data comes in. I want to keep the original structure but in addition, to copy all coming data and then forward to another server via TCP port 8844. I know to write some codes can do it, but is there any built-in function in Windows Server 2012 can perform this?
Thank you.
George
Do you mean that some application on server processes some way the incoming network data and sends them over the network to another host or modified data is stored locally?
My scenario is: I have a server A to listen TCP 8845 port. There is a program installed in server A to process data when it detects data comes in. What I want to do is to keep the structure in server A, but make a copy to the original incoming data and then send it to server B using TCP 8844 port from server A.
I know we can just write a program to do it, but I want to know if there is any built-in functions in Windows Server 2012 can fulfill my demands.
Thanks.
You have to use rewrites. The easiest way I could do this was to set up an IIS server, download and install ARR, then configure AAR and “URL Rewrite” in the IIS Manager. Took about a day for a software engineer (sys admin novice) to do it and get everything straightened out.
Great write up!!! Do you know if connections going through the forwarded ports count towards the Windows 7 client connection limit of 20 concurrent connections? I’m looking to forward some traffic on my network so I can easily run scripts to redirect it if a downtime occurs but I need to know if I’m going to hit an upper limit of concurrent connections. THANKS!
thank you so so so so so much youjust saved me 8 hours of driving back to a computer i forgot
Excellent article.
I would like to isolate all incoming traffic destined for port 80 to say port 8080. But all locally originated traffic for port 80 as it is. Could you please let me know how this is possible (if at all) in WINDOWS server ?
Try to use the following command:
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=80 listenaddress=127.0.0.1 connectport=8080 connectaddress=127.0.0.1
Hi ,
i don’t understand how to forward the port ( 80 for examble ) to any ip and port .
Use following sintax:
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenaddress=[your_local_ip_adress] listenport=80 connectaddress=[any_ip_adress] connectport=[any_tcp_port]
For example,
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenaddress=192.168.1.100 listenport=80 connectaddress=192.168.120.120 connectport=8080
Thanks for this write-up! Been trying to figure out a particularly problematic issue with a legacy application and hoping maybe this can help.
Can this be used to redirect traffic originating on the local machine and directed to a particular IP address to instead send it to a different IP? For example, I have an application that is hard-coded to seek data in an archive at IP x.x.x.10, but the data has been moved and now resides at x.x.x.20 (and I can’t just re-IP the new archive location to make it x.x.x.10). Any thoughts on how to get the application’s requests, even though coming out of the application addressed to x.x.x.10, to instead be redirected and sent to x.x.x.20? Hope this makes sense…
Thanks for the quick and nice article. The double quotes in the firewall command appear unicode not ascii. My command line shell accepts both but makes the two names different.
THIS IS A GREAT WRITEUP!
However, question:
1) Does this work with IPv6?
2) When I’m connected to my VPN (w/ IPv6 enabled, all the ports that I have opened at my router and Win Firewall are now closed, eventho it says “listening on 0.0.0.0”. So, do I need to forward the ports from 0.0.0.0 to the Local LAN adapter, or from the IP address of the VPN adapter to the local LAN adapter? Kinda confused about this.
Thanks!
Is there any effective way to adjust Windows Firewall to whitelist IP addresses to the ports created with portproxy? My WF rules seem to have no effect.
i want to redirect traffic that goes from a local app to a specific remote address and force it to go to a specific port:
i tried something like:
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenaddress=[remote_address] connectport=[port_i_want_to_forward_to] connectaddress=[remote_address]
can i do something like this?
Very good post !! Thank you
Hi
Could I redirect 80 or 53 to other server?
Ex. My oficial site is hosted in a linux server with the same DNS name at AD server.
If I use primary DNS from AD server on stations, I can’t open my site and applicatons throug DNS hosted on second server.
Thanks
Hi
I did not understand, do you want to forward HTTP connections for internal clients from AD server to Linux?
PS. You can forward this way only TCP connections (DNS work over UDP potocol).
You are a legend. Thanks for the great article worked like a charm!
[…] Windows Port Forwarding Example […]
Thanks . This is very useful.
It worked for me
Excellent article on the topic. We have In The Netherlands static IP addresses so a DNS is not necessary. But with some routers here (KPN Experia box) . you need to port forward on 2 different places within the router and that can be a real challenge.
Hello i cant enter pc remotely with any domain accaunt, when i wanna try show error, “Logon attemp failed, or incorrect user amd password” but username and password are correct