Devices and Ports

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

A server running Routing and Remote Access views the installed networking equipment as a series of devices and ports.

Membership in the local Administrators group, or equivalent, is the minimum required to complete this procedure. Review details about using the appropriate accounts and group memberships at Local and Domain Default Groups (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=83477).

Device

A device is the hardware or software that provides ports that remote access connections can use to establish point-to-point connections. Devices are physical, such as a modem, or virtual, such as virtual private network (VPN) protocols. Devices can support a single port, such as a modem, or multiple ports, such as modem bank hardware that can terminate 64 different incoming analog phone calls. Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) and Layer Two Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) are examples of virtual multiport devices. Each of these tunneling protocols supports multiple VPN connections.

To see the installed devices, you can view the properties of Ports in Routing and Remote Access.

Port

A port is a channel of a device that can support a single point-to-point connection. For single-port devices such as modems, the device and the port are indistinguishable. For multiport devices, the port is the subdivision of the device over which a separate point-to-point connection is possible. For example, Primary Rate Interface (PRI) ISDN adapters support two separate channels called B channels. The ISDN adapter is a device. Each B channel is a port because a separate point-to-point connection can occur over each B channel.

You can view the dial-up ports by clicking Ports in Routing and Remote Access.