Ports
Applies To: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2
An RRAS server views the installed networking equipment as a series of devices and ports. Ports displays the currently installed ports, the device to which each is associated, and status.
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. These tunneling protocols support multiple VPN connections.
To see the installed devices, you can view the properties of Ports in the RRAS MMC snap-in.
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 the RRAS MMC snap-in.
To see detailed status information for a port, double-click it in Ports, or right-click the port and then click Status. The Port Status dialog box is displayed.
You can configure the number of available ports for devices that support multiple ports.
To configure the number of ports for a device
In the RRAS MMC snap-in, right-click Ports, and then click Properties.
In the Ports Properties dialog box, select the device whose ports you want to manage, and then click Configure.
Configure the ports for the device by using the Configure Device dialog box.