Port Forwarding

[nitan]

hi guys...long time no see/post....

As you may have guessed this is a query about port fwding...

I have a home LAN and everything works gr8, except the sending and recieving of files using MSN messenger...

I think this is cause i done have port fwding setup on my router...the question is how do i know which ports to fwd to my machine????

Any help appreciated...

Nitan:)

[Farabomb]

Hi M8 :)

I wish I could help you but I have never been able to get the send file to work in M$msgr or AIM.

Hope someone here can help you and maybe me too.

Glad to have you pop in.

[4.6POWER]

well... to totally alleviate any router problems, you may enable DMZ hosting, which will expose all the ports... and consequently not provide you with a firewall also. Just enable it by entering the IP of the computer on your network you want to expose.

the safe way... is to look into the help section of whatever proggies you are using which need their ports fwd. usually most proggies that use the net always have a networking tab which will show what ports they use. write these down and then go into your router settings and fwd these ports fo all of the pc's on your network using the last 3 digits of their IP's... similarly to setting the DMZ host above. anymore q's post up... but this is how I do it on my linksys.

[nitan]

Cheers 4.6...hows things anyway???

I too have a linksys....:)

[Player0]

DMZ is dangerous and opens you right up to hackers. Unless your running a software firewall on the machine you open up as DMZ, I wouldn't open up DMZ.

Funny, I've never had problems receiving files with MSN Messanger, and never even had to open up a port. Same with AIM. Requests for direct connections always go through my routers, but I dont know what protocol they are using. You should look up what ports MSN uses to transfer files, then just program that in to your router.

Software like ICQ does not use any specific port. The only way to transfer files with ICQ through the firewall is to open ports 1024 to 65535, which opens your system right up to trojan attacks. Youd have to install a proxy server somewhere to make this work. Or use a software firewall that prompts you when outside connections are trying to be made.

[Synthohol]

port 21 is the 1st port used for u/d files from aol, msn and yahoo.
fwiw even with analogx proxy which uses port 6588 for most all svcs BUT ftp, ftp is 21 unless on the router you specify and re-route the packets. as soon as i find the linksys manual i (borrowed) from work i may help further.
can you manually type in a port like aol does below?

[Synthohol]

hey nitan, how did it work out??

[nitan]

well...erm...yes....port forwarding works gr8...except...none of my housemates can use their IM clients if i fwd the ports to my machine....:rolleyes: ...guess i will just have to live with it....unless you have any suggestions

[4.6POWER]

someone set us up the bomb?

ehh... me no comprende... :confused:

[Synthohol]

Originally posted by nitan
well...erm...yes....port forwarding works gr8...except...none of my housemates can use their IM clients if i fwd the ports to my machine....:rolleyes: ...guess i will just have to live with it....unless you have any suggestions

strangely enough, on all my proxy'd boxes i use port 1080 with the ip of the shared "proxy server" and they work just fine. are you using analogx? it works here and at work just fine except ticker tape info on aol's im wont display if a proxy is used, but thats the only restriction.

[nitan]

hmm...i dont fully understand the situation but this is my diagnosis:

My lan has this topology:

WAN<--NTL Cable Modem-->Linksys Router BEFSAR41-->4 PC's

the IP that is visible to anyone outside of our LAN is that of the Router, ie there is only one...so surely if i fwd the ports that IM uses to my machine then only my machine will have access to those ports? Well that seems to be the way its working out because I become the only one able to access IM...

[Synthohol]

ok, your cable modem is assignd an ip address and dns and all that stuff. IF you are behind the firewall which you are (from the router which should be using NAT network address translation), so your internal lan is lets say 192.168.0.xxx if the other w/stations have the ip address of the router as their gateway under tcp/ip properties on all the machines, they should be able to access the internet and IM services without being exposed to the world. check in IE connection properties under lan settings and either there should be NO boxes checked (a linksys thing) or automaticly detect settings (unusual with a linksys).
all IM services use IE properties to do what they gotta do, if NOT... if your pc has NO problems to get to the net or IM services, try AnalogX Proxy server. you run a small tsr program on your pc that the others will use as a proxy for these and all internet use.
setup takes 3 minutes or less, a green dot appears in your taskbar next to the clock and you configure it to YOUR internal ip address. done on your end.
now go to a ws and open IE prop connection, lan settings page on the other workstations and set the proxy to YOUR internal ip and a port of 6588 on all but FTP that you uncheck use same port......and fill in 21 under ftp. 99% done. now open the settings page of their IM service and check use proxy with the port of 1080 it still works trust me ive used that service for years now. let me know, i get into this stuff a little too much!
good luck!!!

[nitan]

cool...cheers for all that, i will give it a go when i have some time, prolly on saturday...and then let you know how it goes...cheers once again

nitan:)

[Synthohol]

Nitan, how'd it work out? just curious..:)

[nitan]

hey man, sorry for the late reply...well i tried...and then gave up...with the speed of our connection it doesnt really matter...so we are just emailing things now...thanks for the try tho man...much appreciated...

[LoRdKyRoN]

hmm strange. im running a hardware firewall and multipul software firewalls on multipull machines on my network .(yes we are anal). but using good ole port 53 for aim works great. also you can get the ip addy from your client and do a direct connect. just set the ip in your firewall as trusted and have at it. i dont recomment opening all of your ports. believe it or not the avg broadband user gets 30 tcp/ip udp port snifs every hour. never know whos looking or what they want friend.