Port Triggering

A type of port forwarding where outbound traffic on predetermined ports sends inbound traffic to specific incoming ports. Port triggering “triggers” an open incoming port when a client on the local network makes an outgoing connection to a predetermined port on a server. Port Triggering is more secure than port forwarding, because the incoming ports are not open all the time, they are open only when a program is actively using the trigger port. One major advantage of port triggering is that it allows computers behind a NAT-enabled router to provide services which would normally require a static host (one with an unchanging network address). The disadvantage of port forwarding is that it only allows one client on the network to use a particular service that occupies a particular port.