What is "port forwarding"?

[Technodreamer]

What is “port forwarding”? A program called edonkey (a bit like kazaa without viruses) wants me to setup port forwarding so that I can get mazimium speed out of my broadband. I want this too, but what is port forwarding, and is it safe. Will I comprimise my system. Apparently I have to enter a port and an IP address.

Thanks for any feedback.

[_Darkness_Myth]

Port forwarding

Port forwarding is used to forward requests about specific ports from
one computer to another.

Field Description

Services

Select the service that should be forwarded out of this pre-defined
list.

Destination IP

Enter the IP address of the destination host on which the port is to
be forwarded.

Port

Enter the port of the destination host on which the port should be
forwarded.

Port

Log

Activate this option if you want forwarded connections for this
service to be logged.

found that with google - no i don’t have a clue either