About PortRemoter
PortRemoter is a software-based TCP/IP port forwarder.
It accepts connections on a local port, and establishes corresponding connections to a remote port.
Data can travel through these connections, in a bi-directional manner, making the forwarding process transparent to the communicating parties.
The following illustrates a typical situation:
A client connects to a computer running the PortRemoter software.
PortRemoter accepts the connection, and then connects to a server.
The client and server converse, as if they were connected directly.
This ability to forward ports can help solve certain network topology problems, using a software solution.
PortRemoter Features
Below are some of the features of PortRemoter:
- Native FreeBSD application written in C/C++.
- High-performance, scalable, multi-threaded design.
- Utilizes the FreeBSD kqueue I/O event notification facility.
- Run as a 64-bit standalone FreeBSD process or daemon.
- Built-in HTTP/HTTPS server allows for web-based administration of the software.
- Activity feeds page that displays a graphical report of its operational statistics.
- Application settings allow the customization of the administrative interface.
- Ability to limit the number of active connections in total or per IP address.
- Load balancing distributes the processing over a set of servers.
- Virtual hosting allows a single server port to host multiple domains.
- Certificate store allows multiple certificates to be managed through the administrative interface.
- Server certificates can be applied to port forwarders and virtual hosts enabling HTTPS support.
- Choice between Botan or OpenSSL when selecting a TLS library for HTTPS operations.
- Can use the Botan and/or OpenSSL libraries for adding HTTPS support.
- Ability to control the number of worker threads used to transfer data.
- Command Line can be used to manage the administrative interface.
- Supports a collection of customizable TCP/IP port forwarders, and
- Draws interactive graphical representations of their network topology.
- Ability to use either Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) and/or 6 (IPv6).
- Services file allows the customization of the TCP/IP port number resolutions.
- Access control lists indicate which IP addresses are permitted to connect.
- Connection logs allow connection history to be saved to files.
- Session statistics maintain transfer information since the process was started.
- Active connections viewable from the session statistics table.
- Historical statistics maintain transfer information since the product was installed.
- Log file keeps track of changes and reports error conditions.
- When two or more instances of PortRemoter communicate with each other, additional features are available:
- Connection pooling that allows connections to be re-used to service multiple TCP operations.
- Server-side ports can be shared to reach a collection of destination servers.
- Shared server-side ports can automatically match the product features of the client.
- Brotli, Deflate (ZIP), LZ4, Snappy or Zstandard data compression methods supported to minimized transfer sizes.
- Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), ChaCha20/Poly1305 or XChaCha20/Poly1305 encryption for safe communication.
- Data transfers can be verified correct with a cryptographic hash function.
- Additional logging for invalid data received during paired mode operations.
- Additional statistics provide metrics on the paired mode operations.
- The Windows, Linux, macOS and Docker products are 100% compatible, so they can all work together!