User's Manual

Advanced Settings
84
N600 Wireless Dual Band Router WNDR3400v3
1. You open a browser, and your operating system assigns port number 5678 to this
browser session.
2. Y
ou type http://www.example.com into the URL field, and your computer creates a web page
request message with the following address and port information. The request message is
sent to your router.
Source address. Y
our computer’s IP address.
Source port number. 567
8, which is the browser session.
Destination address. The I
P address of www.example.com, which your computer finds
by asking a DNS server.
Destination port number. 80, which is th
e standard port number for a web server
process.
3. Y
our router creates an entry in its internal session table describing this communication
session between your computer and the web server at www.example.com. Before sending
the web page request message to www.example.com, your router stores the original
information and then modifies the source information in the request message, performing
Network Address Translation (NAT):
• T
he source address is replaced with your router’s public IP address. This is necessary
because your computer uses a private IP address that is not globally unique and
cannot be used on the Internet.
• T
he source port number is changed to a number chosen by the router, such as 33333.
This is necessary because two computers could independently be using the same
session number.
Your router then sends this request message through the Internet to the web server at
www
.example.com.
4. Th
e web server at www.example.com composes a return message with the requested web
page data. The return message contains the following address and port information. The
web server then sends this reply message to your router.
Source address. The
IP address of www.example.com.
Source port number. 80,
which is the standard port number for a web server process.
Destination address. The p
ublic IP address of your router.
Destination port number. 3333
3.
5. Upon receiving the
incoming message, your router checks its session table to determine
whether an active session for port number 33333 exists. Finding an active session, the
router then modifies the message to restore the original address information replaced by
NAT. Your router sends this reply message to your computer, which displays the web
page from www.example.com. The message now contains the following address and port
information.
Source address. The
IP address of www.example.com.
Source port number. 80,
which is the standard port number for a web server process.
Destination address. Y
our computer’s IP address.