Can you use UPNP & DMZ together? Plus other Questions..

[Simon Bussey]

Hi All,

I have a few questions regarding UPNP and DMZ in a home NAT LAN which is
connected to the internet via a Cable modem and I am using a Linksys Befsr41
router. I've split my questions up into a series of numbered smaller
questions...

1) Does upnp work with a dmz ip?

2)If yes, will upnp override the dmz? My understanding of of upnp is that it
will set port forwarding automatically as and when a client requires. As dmz
automatically forwards all ports to a given ip, will upnp override this and
send the port forwarding to another ip (which is using upnp)?

3)Is there any benefit of using upnp if you have dmz enabled? i.e will
anything work with upnp which wouldn't work with dmz? I've heard reports
that messenger works fine with upnp but if dmz is enabled aswell, the speed
of video/file transfers increases? Is this true and if so why?

4) Essentially I ask these questions because I play alot of games (both
connecting to other game servers and hosting my own) plus I use various
video conferencing/sharing software. I'm forever trying to get programs to
work correctly by setting up port forwarding etc. What I want is to have the
router setup so as many programs/games will work as possible without me
having to change settings. Ideally as if I had no NAT at all and was
connected directly to the interent. Security is a secondary issue here.

Many Thanks for any help!

Simon

*remove the SPAM bit to reply via email

 

[Jonathan Kay [MVP]]

Greetings Simon,

1) Sure does.
2) Yes it will.
3) No there isn't, any "reports" like this indicate that UPnP isn't working properly and a
relay server is being used.
4) The whole point of UPnP is being able to use functionality that you describe (yes there
are games that use UPnP as well) without having to do any manual port forwarding at all.
UPnP is actually used for a quite a few other things, but int erms of a router, it's used for
more than just port forwarding--IP discovery and a few other tricks are there as well.
____________________________________________
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Messenger/MSN Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com
All posts unless otherwise specified are (c) 2004 Jonathan Kay.
You *must* contact me for redistribution rights.