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Can someone demystify computer Ports for me? Please? Blocking, unblocking, opening, allowing, VPNs and their effect, what ports are and what they do, step by step, when you have to interact with them? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 7 months ago by Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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It's the one thing when I'm configuring things that makes me wince because I know it will give me the business, and I know it shouldn't, but it does, every time. I have no real idea what I'm doing, what it is, how it works, so of course I'm blindly following instructions like a monkey at a typewriter.

Please guide me into enlightenment.

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[–] Dagamant@lemmy.world 21 points 7 months ago

Thats a lot of information to ask for so ill try to be very basic. A port is like a window with a guy on the other side. if you speak the same language as the guy you can have a conversation.

There are 65535 windows available. the open have guys available for conversations, the closed ones dont.

When you open a port on your computer you should have a program that "listens" at that port so that others can use it to have a conversation.

A vpn takes all of the conversations your computer wants to have and sends them to a port on a server and the program listening to that conversation sends your requests to their intended destination and then sends you the result. Its like using a middleman to have a conversation.