Simple options for port forwarding to a different port?
- by Nick
I have three network printers at our local office, all of which listen on port 9100. Non of them offer the option of changing the listening port. We have a single public static IP address, and access to our main network is through a Linksys WRT-54G.
We need to be able to print to these printers from outside the office. The problem is, with the 54G, I can only forward a port to the SAME port on a particular IP address. What I really need though is a way to forward to an ip address and a DIFFERENT port.
I need to do this:
In port Destination
9100 192.168.1.1 : 9100
9101 192.168.1.2 : 9100
9102 192.168.1.3 : 9100
So I'm looking for options.
I could setup an old computer with two network cards and IPtables I suppose, but that seems like a lot of overhead for something relatively simple.
Is there a way a virtual machine (read: one network card) could do the advanced port forwarding? Where I forward all traffic to it, and it forwards it on to the right printer?
Or what about those mini Linux distros that replace the WRT-54G's firmware? Do any of those support what I need "out of the box"?
I have a spare WRT- could I make it an IP tables router? Recommendations for mini distros?
Or is there an off-the-shelf product that does this (cheap/local preferred)?
Any advice / options appreciated.
Thanks!
