Tunneling, also known as "port forwarding," is the transmission
of data intended for use only within a private, usually corporate
network through a public network in such a way that the routing
node in the public network are unaware that the transmission is
part of a private network. Tunneling is generally done by
encapsulating the private network data and protocol information
within the public network transmission units so that the private
network protocol information appears to the public network as data.
Tunneling allows the use of the Internet, which is a public
network, to convey data on behalf of a private network.