Router ports?

My son plays RPG's online & I would like to see if there is a way to go from the cable modem to his computer and then feed the router so he could avoid opening ports on the router? Is there a device to use to split the signal from the modem to feed his computer & then the router? Please let me know if this question would be more appropriate for the "gaming" forum. Thanks in advance for any assistance! Chuck

 

What you're thinking isn't possible-- you can't split modem outputs, that's why there are routers. What you could do, that would essentially accomplish the same thing (which most would consider unwise) is to hard code his IP address and then put it in the router's DMZ. That would essentially make his entire machine open to the web, as if it were only behind the modem. But then he'd want to use a software firewall and only open the necessary gaming ports.

But consider that it's not really "opening" ports on a router that's being done, it's forwarding traffic through specific ports to specific machines on the LAN. If you hard code his machine's LAN IP address, and configure the router's port forwarding to allow the RPG port traffic to that machine only, your other machines are protected.

 

the best thing to do is static assign an ip address to his computer
in your router forward the ports that the software uses to his ip address.
this will keep the list of open ports to a minimum and he will not have to depend on the security of the windows firewall (microsoft software is always being exploited)