What is WAN and what happens if its blocked?

[pippin3]

what is WAN blocking? I've been trying to ping the pc that hosts my home network and it keeps coming back 0 received

I'm curious what is WAN blocking and what happens if your IP is blocked.

would this have anything to do with why I can't get an answer from my network host when pinging?

 

[eibgrad]

The WAN is the public/internet facing side of your router. Most routers block all traffic that originates from the internet into your WAN for security reasons, including ping (icmp), your router's GUI (port 80), etc. When you enable port forwarding, you're OPENING one or more of those ports on the WAN and forwarding the traffic to any internal ip address on your home network (LAN).

 

[pippin3]

The WAN is the public/internet facing side of your router. Most routers block all traffic that originates from the internet into your WAN for security reasons, including ping (icmp), your router's GUI (port 80), etc. When you enable port forwarding, you're OPENING one or more of those ports on the WAN and forwarding the traffic to any internal ip address on your home network (LAN).

Eibgrad
thanks very much - now I understand... believe it or not I googled it several times and couldn't find an explanation that made sense. So then its not really important that I can't ping the IP or the computer that hosts my home network right?

(I hope I'm responding the right way here - this is my first time)

 

[eibgrad]

Correct. Your router is intentionally denying access to the LAN from the internet to prevent hackers, viruses, and other mischief. And while a ping is not a particularly risky thing to permit, the idea is to keep your router stealthy. Think of it like the front door of your home, where you not only keep the door closed and locked, but you don't even respond when someone knocks (i.e., pings). You just completely ignored all visitors in the hope they conclude no one is home, and they’ll simply move on.

 

[pippin3]

Ok thanks