What's the simplest way to forward packets from the source to a destination? The theory would be this: There is an application (maybe a standard network type, or maybe another type). Let's say it uses port 41 to make a connection to a computer where a server listens on that port. The thing in this case though, is that server, may really be located on 2 different IP addresses. They are 2 different computers. Now some applications let you do this differnetly. Such as if you have 2 webservers on different computers. You could have them accessed on 2 different computers maybe by public port 50 being forwarded to port 41, at IP address 3.1.1.3 and public port 90 being forwarded to port 41 at IP address 3.1.1.66. But what if the application doesn't allow you to switch which outgoing port it uses, so it's stuck with accessing port 41, and you can't change the incomming port, so it's stuck listening at port 41? I've got a DIR-615 Router, and I could theoretically set up some kind of virtual server or something on a computer to do the job if I needed to. I'm new at this kind of stuff anyway, so a simple explanation would be helpful of how any port forwarding is done in theory anyway.

So load balancing then...

Linux Virtual Server

BalanceNG Project web site

HAProxy Setting Up A High-Availability Load Balancer (With Failover and Session Support) With HAProxy/Keepalived On Debian Etch

I think the explanations on their respective sites would provide the info you are looking for.

Looks like it might be on the right track, but maybe not there yet. It would work right all right to have servers running on the same port, and have them run on a kind of a shared IP address, at least in some situations. So thanks. There's also others, which it wouldn't work for, like when you want it to go to a specific computer, because they're seperate games playing, or your playing a game between 2 computers inside, plus one computer outside.

for the other situations you would just forwrd the appropriate external port the the internal port on the machine running hthe game.

Load balancing as those projects are intended for is more suited to web sites and applications, not gaming.

I've now refound the proper article. This is the most complicated of the cases I'm wanting to learn, thus far, but is the specific example I was trying to do.

http://www.psmonopoly.com/index.php/...r-network.html is what I'm trying to do. But do I know which computer is going to be playing the game at that point in time? Not exactly. It could be 5.5.5.1 or 5.5.5.2 or 5.5.5.254 (not the real IP Addresses, but the real concept). Therefore I don't know which IP Address to send them to. I only know the ports to open.

I've now refound the proper article. This is the most complicated of the cases I'm wanting to learn, thus far, but is the specific example I was trying to do.

http://www.psmonopoly.com/index.php/...r-network.html is what I'm trying to do. But do I know which computer is going to be playing the game at that point in time? Not exactly. It could be 5.5.5.1 or 5.5.5.2 or 5.5.5.254 (not the real IP Addresses, but the real concept). Therefore I don't know which IP Address to send them to. I only know the ports to open. I can use a server for the final redirection if I have to though, in theory.

Oops! I posted twice!