Your Guide To CenturyLink Port Forwarding

If you’ve landed on this page, then it will be safe to make the assumption that you are a user of CenturyLink broadband. The second assumption that we can make is that you know about port forwarding and you want to find out how you can do it on CenturyLink.

However, on the off chance that you do not know about port forwarding and just happened to stumble on this blog, don’t worry, we will tell you exactly what it is. As for how you can port forward CenturyLink, that is also something we will be talking about in today’s blog. So, without delay, let’s get right into it!

Port Forwarding: What Is It and Why Do We Need It?

Port forwarding, also known as port mapping, lets remote servers and devices on the internet access devices that are within your private local-area network (LAN) and so on. So, without this feature, only the devices that are already a part of your internal network can access each other. As for a port, it is how the computer differentiates among multiple services listening on one computer.

It all sounds complicated, doesn’t it? Well, let’s break it down a little with an analogy. Consider that your computer is a house and the ports are like doors to the house. Now, the house has 65,000 doors and if we say port 22 is listening, it means that door 22 is unlocked.

Next, let’s consider NAT, the Network Access Translation, which is like the gatekeeper. Note that the actual role of NAT is to provide different addresses internally and externally. At the same time, it is thanks to NAT that the internal devices all share the same external IP address.

Going back to our house analogy, we will consider NAT as the gatekeeper. So now when a visitor, which is any remote server or device, enters your neighborhood and asks the gatekeeper for door 22, he will not know which house he is talking about. This is where port forwarding comes in and if we were to set some router or gateway settings, it will be possible to send the right instructions to the gatekeeper and so on.

In technical terms or actual terms, setting the router or gateway settings will send inbound connections to the right computer within the network. After reading and understanding this, you might wonder when this is done and why. While this seems like something tech professionals would need and do, it is actually quite the contrary.

Port forwarding is commonly used when hosting game servers for multiplayer gaming, using torrent applications to download files, permitting file transfers from the computer to the outside world, and much more along the same lines.

How to Set up Port Forwarding for CenturyLink?

Having understood the concept and need for port forwarding, let’s move on to how you can port forward CenturyLink. The process is not lengthy and we have broken it down into a series of easy steps so you can follow along.

Step #1: Connect your device to the internet using CenturyLink WiFi or via Ethernet cable.

Step #2: Copy and paste http://192.168.0.1 into the search bar of your browser.

Step #3: Log into the setting interface of your CenturyLink modem.

Note that you will need to use your admin username and password for this, not the wireless network name and Wi-Fi password. Your wireless network name or your SSID is the name that you can see on your wireless network list. And the Wi-Fi password is the key that you will enter to connect to the network. Whereas your admin username and password are used for the modem settings portal. You can also access secure settings like firmware updates, schedules, Wi-Fi security, and more.

Step #4: From the main menu, select the ‘Advanced Setup’.

Step #5: From the left sidebar, click ‘Port Forwarding’.

Step #6: Next, you will need to do the following:

• Choose the device that you want to port forward to, by selecting one from the dropdown menu or by typing out the IP address of the device.
• Next, enter the required LAN port details, the starting and ending ports both. This depends on your use case. Here’s a list of common ports used by services and programs. The default starting/ending port is 80.
• Then, just choose the correct protocol. The default setting is “both”, but you can also choose TCP/UDP.
• Select ‘All IP Addresses’ or specify one IP address. Note that you can review or remove entries from the Port Forwarding List at the bottom of the page.
• Hit ‘Apply’ and your changes will be saved.

While the whole process is quite easy and will not take more than a few minutes, you can always reach out to CenturyLink customer service at 1-800-244-1111 if you run into any problems.

The Final Word

This concludes our guide for CenturyLink port forwarding. After reading this blog, we are confident that you are now better equipped than before. Port forwarding is not a difficult process, despite how you might think. There are many benefits to port forwarding that you might not even be aware of. No doubt it opens the door to a world of possibilities for everyone!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Does CenturyLink have port forwarding?

Yes, CenturyLink does allow port forwarding. With CenturyLink port forwarding, you can connect remote servers or devices to the devices that are within your private local area network.

Does CenturyLink block port forwarding?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The answer depends on which ports we’re talking about. CenturyLink does tend to block ports that can be and are used to exploit customers and non-customer computers.

How do I port forward my CenturyLink modem?

To port forward your CenturyLink modem, you will need to log into it and choose the device that you want to port forward to. You will need to make a few more changes like choosing the right protocol and then hitting Apply to save the changes.

Can you port forward with CenturyLink?

Yes, CenturyLink port forwarding is possible. You will need to set up your device and change some settings after logging into your modem to do that.