How to port forward Hotspot to PC in Windows 11

One of the ways in which data may be forwarded from the outside world to a local machine on a private network is by port forwarding, sometimes referred to as port mapping. Here, we go through the steps for forwarding a wireless hotspot to a Windows 11 or 10 computer.

Opening a dedicated tunnel between the device and the Internet, forwarding enables some applications to reach the device or service directly by bypassing the rules of the network. To do so, ensure that the respective application at the device is configured to receive data from the network settings of your PC alone, and only select ports are reserved for the purpose.

For my friends and me to host a Minecraft server, for instance, the router is required so their connections can reach the server PC on the network. We can utilize port forwarding earlier to tell the server which of the inbound traffic it should accept.

Transfer of a Windows 11 or 10 Hotspot to a Personal Computer

Next is how you would configure port forwarding on Windows using either a physical or virtual machine, respectively, in the following order:

Windows Firewall with Defender

Windows Command Prompt

Virtual Machine NAT Rules

All of these processes require administrative privileges. First of all, you need to ensure that the mobile hotspot is turned on before attempting the processes stated below.

You first need to know the IP address range that Windows hotspot is using.

You can find the IP address range of a Windows mobile hotspot via the Command Prompt application, PowerShell, or even the Network and Sharing Center.

Open Terminal with Win + R, then press Enter.

Next, below typing, hit Enter for ipconfig.

Scroll down in the output to find the mobile hotspot adapter-which should have an adapter name like vEthernet (Internal Network) or something similar.

You will find the IPv4 Address section below this adapter. This IP address is used by the mobile hotspot of your computer. By default, all the devices connected using a mobile hotspot would usually get IP addresses from x.y.z.1 to x.y.z.24 since the usual or standard IP address range which a hotspot uses is x.y.z.1/24.

Redirect wireless hotspot traffic using either Windows Firewall, Terminal, or NAT Rules.

We are going to use 192.168.1.10 as an example IP address. In this respect, after you have executed the configuration part, you should use it as it appears in the terminal.

1- Windows Firewall

For setting up Windows Defender Firewall to forward ports, the following methods are to be followed;

In the list of options that pop up once you key in "firewall" in the Desktop Search Bar, select the option Windows Defender Firewall.

Right-click on Inbound Rules in the opened window and select New Rules.

In order to set up a port, we highlight the port that we want to setup from the list and click Next. Here, we can select either TCP or UDP.

Specific Local Ports: We select here what port numbers need to be forwarded.

Select the option Press the Next button after you've allowed the connection.

In the Domain, Private, or Public pull-down menu, we select which profile the rule applies to, and then click Next to proceed.

You can then click on the Finish button after naming the rule to complete the setup of the rule.

2-]End

You may also configure the plus forwarding with the use of your computer's Windows Terminal:

You can open the Command Prompt by opening your Desktop Search Bar, typing cmd, then hitting enter on the result.

You can open the details of your network settings using the Terminal Prompt. You will do this by typing ipconfig then Enter.

Note down IPv4 address in the Network Adapter.

In the command prompt, to add the port forwarding rule, add the following: netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=8080

Listen address: 192.168.1.10 enter port 8080 URL: "192.168.1.10" connected

Example,

v4tov4 added to portproxy netsh interface: Additional rule for forwarding IPv4 traffic has been added.

Now, set listenport=8080 and ask the proxy server to listen to all incoming connections at the local port 8080.

The command listenaddress=192.168.1.10 designates a permanent local IP address to be used for listening to the incoming traffic.

Now, in order to designate the port number on the remote system where all incoming connections are to be forwarded, type connectport=8080.

By using connectaddress=192.168.1.10, one can instruct the proxy server to send all incoming traffic to a remote machine.

In short, the above chain of commands will establish a port forwarding configuration that is supposed to forward any incoming traffic on the local machine with the IP address 192.168.1.10 on the same port to a distant system with the same IP address.

Since it is a kind of loopback-the process of forwarding, in both the systems, the configuration has to be made using the same IP address and port number. This type of port-forwarding method called loopback will keep the incoming traffic on the same system instead of transferring it to some other network. In port forwarding, this configuration can be used for internal system-to-system service exposure on a single port exposure without exposure to an external network.

3] Virtual Machine NAT Preferences

We can also access the services running on a Virtual Machine using port forwarding. Here are the steps to enable port forwarding on a virtual machine:

Open Hyper-V Manager by searching in the desktop search bar and then clicking it.

Once the Hyper-V Manager window opens, click Virtual Switch Manager, then click New Virtual Network Switch.

In the dialogue box, select either "Internal" or "Private" naming the Virtual Switch to create a new one.

Now go to the Settings of Network Adapter and you shall see the Virtual Switch that we have created then click on Add Hardware > Network Adapter to add a new network adapter.

Now that we have opened up the Windows Terminal of the virtual machine, we can create the NAT rule by using the following in the Terminal Prompt:

Add v4tov4 to Netsh interface port proxy The setting would be something like: Port 80, address 0.0.0.0, port 8080, and address 192.168.1.10.

Which of the following Windows Commands do you use to Create, delete, and modify Port Forwarding rules?

To add a port forwarding rule, as we have told above, we can type:

Netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 The parameters "listenport," "listenaddress," and "connectport" are void.

It is also possible to delete an already existing rule by the following at the command prompt.

delete v4tov4 listenport= listenaddress="netsh interface portproxy"

Rules that have been made cannot be modified; any change therefore to one of them would involve deleting the old one and making a new one. And just like a rule gets turned on by adding a new rule, so it would be turned off by deleting an existing rule.

If you did these approaches and knew the limitations of a mobile hotspot feature on Windows 11, then you should be able to do port forwarding according to your needs.