what is upnp in my router settings?

ive always left it enabled, but i heard its safer to disable?

 

A good read here..........http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Plug_and_Play

 

Chances are good you don't need it. Try blocking: UDP, Port 1900, inbound. If no problems, then you are good to go. I've blocked it in Win 7 firewall with no repercussions.

 

ok thx guys, ive unchecked unpnp in my router and it seems to work fine.

irrelavent question but i should leave the Plug n play service in windows to automatic right?

 

UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) is used to dynamically open ports on your router so you don't have to do manual port mapping. It's something that you may use for example with peer-to-peer file sharing, hosting multiplayer internet games, or the Steam game delivery service.

It makes port mapping easier (with applications that use it) but it does introduce vulnerabilities to your network, for example:
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/347812

As far as Windows services go, Plug and Play and Universal Plug and Play are two completely different things. If you were to disable Plug and Play (and you should NOT), then plug and play devices attached to your computer would no longer be recognized. On the other hand there is a Universal Plug and Play service that allows your computer to see UPnP services on the network, and that can safely be disabled (in fact I believe there I read at one time of a vulnerability associated with it, but don't quote me on that).

 

There were some vulnerabilities with UPnP, but that was patched years ago.

If you don't do a lot with your internet stuff, chances are you won't need it.

Some programs that aren't traditionally NAT friendly will rely on UPnP so their functions can work...example, if you're doing file transfers within some Instant Messenger programs, some use UPnP services to allow it to work. Or video conferencing.

It can take away some of the problems with some apps not wanting to work from behind a NAT router, "automatically does it" for it when the app needs it. Some people don't like losing that control, so..turn it off and troubleshoot your port forwarding stuff manually.