What is IP Tunneling & Port Forwarding?

If your server sits behind NAT — a home connection, a VPS from a provider that doesn't give you a public IP, a machine on a private network — the outside internet can't reach it directly. RepublicNodes Tunnel solves that by routing a real public IP's traffic to your server over an encrypted connection, without you needing to touch your router, your ISP, or any firewall rules on your own network.

There are two modes, and picking the right one matters.

Full-IP Forwarding

One dedicated public IPv4 address is routed entirely to your server — every port, every protocol (TCP, UDP, ICMP). Nothing to configure port by port; if your server listens on it, it's reachable. This is the closest thing to actually owning a public IP on your machine.

Good for: game servers where players need to see a normal IP:port with no unusual port numbers, services that need many ports, anything where "just give me a real IP" is simplest.

Port Forwarding

One shared public IP forwards specific external ports to your server's internal ports. Many customers share the same IP, each with their own independent port rules — you only pay for the ports you need.

Good for: a single game server, a webhook endpoint, SSH access, anything where a handful of specific ports is enough.

Which one do I need?

• Need everything reachable, or a provider-independent dedicated IP? → Dedicated IP – Full Forwarding
• Need a few specific ports? → one of the Port Forwarding plans, from 3 ports up to 150

Next: Connecting your server to RepublicNodes Tunnel.