Port Forwarding information for a 3560 24 port switch?

[225slant6]

I have a small networking application that requires me to forward a certain port (TCP 44158 and UDP 1680) to make it run properly.  I have some 3560 24 port switches sitting around unused, and I was wondering if I have to do anything to make them forward the ports.  Can I just wipe the switch, use little or no configuration on it, and have it pass all the traffic through?  This is for a personal project, not something that will be in any business or organization.

I have an old unmanaged Netgear 4 port ethernet / wireless switch I'm using now and it works, but I learned that I have to go into its admin console and manually specify the port forwards for each individual port.  But soon 4 ports won't be enough, I'll be putting more devices in one good location so I need to upgrade the switch.

And another question.  The ethernet line coming from the modem.  Is it okay to just plug it into port 1 of the 24 ethernet ports, and put the other devices in other ports, or is it better to put the modem line into one of the 2 SFP ports off to the side, and somehow that will do a better job of transferring all the traffic?

Thanks.

[pieterh]

most of tcp/ip is regarded as layer-3 data
a basic switch is only  "layer-2" device. and has no knowledge about tcp/udp  , same goes for the ports used by tcp/udp.
a switch only forwards packets based on MAC addresses 

some switches have layer-3 capabilities , your netgear switch may be one of them

-> yes your 3560 switch with a blank configuration will forward all tcp packets / ports

-> yes the hardware behind the SFP ports is designed to function as uplink/aggregation ports,
but I doubt if your home-network will stress this switch enough to notice any difference