How to find open ports?

rh555

Hi,

All my ports seem to be closed/really slow except for port 80 for HTTP since friday. My internet provider was doing great until last week monday. No problems at all but it got pretty bad since then.

It started with the internet going down for 10-20min every couple hours but at least it came back. I could still download torrents fine and I could run speedtest.net tests which were close to the advertised speed. So besides the outages every few hours I could still use it.

However since friday only websurfing still works and while all the ports are still seem to be open it is incredible slow. I checked the mTorrent software and it said the port was open + other software I used also confirmed the ports were open. The problem is that the speed is somehow limited to 1kb/s on all ports my programs use except port 80 for HTTP.

My main concern is my stock charting software called Esignal which either gets no data at all anymore or only 1kb/s which is not enough to provide enough data.

I also checked speedtest.net and while the site itself came up real quick the speedtest said 0Kb dl + 0kb ul.

Another test called myvoipspeed said 0.3Kb/s dl + 0.2kb/s ul. I assume that both of these tests are using some kind of port besides port 80 and thats why I am having this problem.

So to me it seems like anything that uses any port besides port 80 doesn't work anymore but maybe there are other ports still open. I know about the portforwarding software but i am not sure if I can forward my stock charting software to port 80 or is that only for websites?

Esignal right now uses ports 2189,2190,219,2193,2194 and 2196.

I did talk to my ISP about this, but the service for me went downhill so fast in the last week that they probably won't be able to fix it that soon even though they said everything would be fixed by last wednesday. (all those bad 'three-broadband' stories came to my mind')

Also does anyone know of another speedtest/ftp site etc. that uses a different port than 80? I just want to confirm my suspicion that all the ports are blocked besides 80?

Thanks

P.S. I am having no problem downloading at full speed from Websites unless the service goes completely down of course

Jilm

Shieldsup is a handy site for identifying open ports on your system.

rh555

The problem is that the ports are actually open - just limited to 1Kb/s - 2Kb/s.

Is there any way to find ports that support my full speed like port 80 does?


I'll check out the software though.

Thx

P.S. If a port is closed it does not let any data through at all - correct?

ethernet

Who is your ISP? Could they be throttling P2P downloads or basically anything that isn't on port 80?

rh555

Hi. Provider is Fastcom in Sligo and I don't think they are trying to throttle P2P because I can't imagine that the standard procedure in that case would be to make all ports unavailable except port 80 for browsing.

There must be many more application besides my stock charting program/torrents that uses a port besides 80.

So if that was their intend its pretty damn stupid in my opinion because lots of programs besides torrent won't work either.

So lets assume that port 80 is the only one that actually works. Can I just forward my chart program to port 80 or is that only used for HTTP?

As I said they are having same major problems since monday and they keep messing around with it but it just seems to get worse. I am actually connected to their new Wi-Max service but most people use their line of sight connection.

I would love to find another person that uses Fastcom's service (WiMax or line of sight) but they don't really seem to hang around this board. I guess the provider is just not big enough. That would tell me if their whole network is affected or if its just the WIMAX part.


Thanks

watty

All current WiMax is fairly much LOS. 3.5GHz to 3.7GHz band.

Some operators do practically only support browsing and their own Email server. See some of the stickies.

rh555

Hi watty.

Thx u helped me out before. No, everything worked great until last monday and the port issue just happened last friday. Wimax can work great if it does just the ping time are a bit solw for gamers etc. because the way WIMAX works otherwise I get full speed through website downloads etc. Just anything that doesn't go through port 80 doesn't seem to work anymore.

R

gerryo

rh555 wrote:

Is there any way to find ports that support my full speed like port 80 does?
P.S. If a port is closed it does not let any data through at all - correct?

Have you tried Voip (uses port 5060 for signalling & ports in the range 10000 upwards for voice)? If you can't make a phone call that might indicate some ports are slow or blocked.

How about FTP on port 21?(download something from a site using a real FTP client, not a web browser)

Telnet on 23 or SSH on 22 to a remote server, does that work ok (do you get reasonably fast responses?) Do something like list a directory or cat a text file
- do you get screenfulls of text scrolling really fast?

These are real world applications, the ports are well known, they should be open & working.

Finally, are you sure a firewall setting did not change (what about your router?), or did you install any new software that might control ports or shape traffic?

rh555

Great idea. Here are a couple thing that don't work anymore so far.

1st Speedtest.net -> site loads very fast but results are 0dl/0ul ->always worked before friday. I assume it uses some port besides 80

2nd http://myspeed.visualware.com/voip/ -> simulates voip conversation. I usually got a score of 4.2 which means very good quality now I get these results:

Download speed 2 Kbps (socket test)
Upload speed 303 Kbps (HTTP test)
Quality of service 72 %
Maximum pause 5020 ms
Round trip time 55 ms
Upstream jitter 28.4 ms
Upstream packet loss 0 %
Upstream packet order 100 %
Upstream discards 0 %
Downstream jitter - ms
Downstream packet loss - %

Score 1.8 unusable

Actually interesting thing is that upload still seems to work at least according to this test. Anyways this test also worked fine until friday.

3rd I did this speedtest http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html which works fine if I select port 80 but doesn't give me any result if I leave it at TCP port 8095

I have not done the ftp test yet but thats a good idea just to see. Do u know of any public FTP site although I am sure I'll find one. I can put the ftp address in Internet explorer/firefox - correct? Or do I have to download a ftp client?

I also assume that online gamers will have problems because I read somewhere they are using different ports to connect to game servers.

The problem is that if this whole issue is limited to the WIMAX part of the ISP and not the line of sight my ISP may not get many complains at all because they just started the service and don't have many ppl using the WiMax service - I guess like 20-30ppl or so. So if there are mainly some Grandma's checking their emails once a day I doubt they will have any complaints.

Thx

rh555

Sorry forgot about your firewall question. Long night:) I have no router at all. The service uses a little black box that is connected to the antenna on one side and the Ethernet out on the other side. Its not really a router nor can u make any changes to any settings. At least not from my side.

As software firewall I use zonealarm 6.5 Suite. I shut down zonealarm but the problems still persisted. I also started Windows in Safe mode to see if any drivers etc. could cause the problem but it didn't help.

So I would say the problem is def. not on my end

Thanks

JohnnieM

Wouldnt netstat identify any open ports? have you tried it?

Do you configure your lan card with the Ip info supplied by your isp.. what about putting a wan router on it and config with your details. might make a difference insted of being straight out to the net...

rh555

I tried Netport and its a great little tool. The problem is all the ports are open they just seem to be limited to 1kb/s dl speed while anything that goes through port 80 I can download with 2Mbit/s (my normal speed).

So while the ports are technically open they are reduced to an unusable speed.

I also tried a major ftp site thats connected through port 21 and I got 1Kb/s while another major ftp site at port 80 gave me full download speed.

It looks like I need to find a way to forward all ports through port 80 if that is possible at all?

E.g. is it possible to run torrents etc. through port 80 or is that only reserved for websites. If thats the case I am screwed and so is anybody who uses my provider for anything that uses a port besides 80.

Thx

Jumpy

Call them. I suspect they have implemented traffic shaping, but do not know how to actually configure the software. Either that or they have gone a touch overboard.

Nody

Jumpy wrote:

Call them. I suspect they have implemented traffic shaping, but do not know how to actually configure the software. Either that or they have gone a touch overboard.

Or simply block anything outside the common TCP range.

Anyway to the OP do a speed test on the following ports:
21 (FTP)
23 (Telnet)
22 (SSH)
25 (SMTP)
110 (POP3)
143 (IMAP)
3389 (Remote Desktop)
5631 (PC Anywhere)
6667 (IRC)

If you can't use them you got good grounds to complain as they are all very known non torrent ports (not that you can't torrent through them if you know what you're doing (; ). If these fly fine they are most likely doing a standard traffic shaping of anything beyond port 1024 which is not that unusual (seehttp://www.iss.net/security_center/advice/Exploits/Ports/ for ports beyond which you can test beyond the once listed that are used by non torrent programs).

oscarBravo

rh555 wrote:

1st Speedtest.net -> site loads very fast but results are 0dl/0ul ->always worked before friday. I assume it uses some port besides 80

Nope, it uses port 80.

doug1970

yep...got fastcom here...and this bugs me...
fastcom cost more than any of the other providers in the sligo area...and as well as this the service is very very unstable...ie..last week upload speed wasnt working, so couldn't log into some sites etc..
unfortunetly...if your in a certain area, fastcom are the only option..

rh555

Hi doug1970,

Wow I actually found someone else who is using fastcom. Are you using the line of sight or the WIMAx connection.

The problems started last monday with outages throughout the day but the whole port issue just happened since friday at least for me. I am about to have a vist with them in a couple minutes because phone calls seem to be useless. There are nice guys working there but in my opinion customer support is pretty bad.

My conversation over the phone since monday went like this.

Me calling them saying there are frequent outages today and they are telling me they would look into it and they would call me back. They didn't call back ofcourse.

On tuesday I call them again and now at least they admitted having problems because alot off peolple called. They said they would fix it by wednesday morning the latest and I should call them if problem persist.

I am still having problems on wednesday so I call them again and they tell me again they would call me back. Ofcourse they didn't.

On friday the whole port issue started so me being an idiot calling them but it felt like deja vu because no callback again.

So luckely I only live 5min away from them and if I don't go there personally nothing will get done at all.

The whole problem is that I need the internet all day because I work from home and I have programs that use ports besides 80. Now I lose money everyday I can't work because of this ****. If it just were about online gaming which I don't do or downloading torrents which don't care that much about it i'd be somewhat ok with it.

Anyways, doug1970 please let me know if u're having the same port issues. Still don't know if its just a wimax issue or their whole network is messed up. I also think online gaming wouldn't work bc I read somewhere it also uses a port other than 80.

I can only hope more people are hing issues and are calling them to get their act together.

Thanks

BTW. The personen who said speedtest is using port 80 for the actual test. Not the website itsef (that works fine). Are you 100% sure about this?

As I wrote before this test at http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html gives me know results at their standard port but works perfectly fine at port 80.

Also FTP at port 21 doesn't work. I tried that yesterday ACtually works with the previously described 1kb/s. I tried a ftp site that uses port 80 and it worked full speed

oscarBravo

rh555 wrote:

BTW. The personen who said speedtest is using port 80 for the actual test. Not the website itsef (that works fine). Are you 100% sure about this?

Yes, I set up the first speedtest.net server in Ireland. I also just double-checked by tcpdumping while speedtesting, and it was port 80 traffic.

rh555

Well, that makes it even more confusing. I just went to my ISP and it worked fine for them. At least the speedtest.net test did. They said they did reduce speeds of unknown + torrent ports on friday but to something like 0.5Mbit/s but def. not to the 8Kbit =1KB/s I am getting.

They gave me a static IP address and he opened the ports I need for my stock charting software. I'll check it now and I'll see what happens.

Thanks

rh555

Thanks to all for the help.

The static IP address seemed to have fixed everything. FTP works, my stock charting software works - even Torrent works again although I guess not at full speed anymore after they limited it, but its faster than 1KB/s.:)

The one speedtest at http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html works now at the default port and port 80 and so does the http://myspeed.visualware.com/voip/ test.

Funny thing is that speedtest.net still doesn't work but I could care less about it . So it seems you were def. right about speedtest.net using port 80 and the problem seems to lie somewhere else. But as I said thats no big deal at all as long as everything else works again.

Well I am glad I had today off working (going by the U.S. holiday schedule) so at least I only lost 1 working day because of this. Hopefully the service stays solid again as it did the 2months before where it worked flawless at least for me.

R

P.S. To doug1970 if u have any problems with ports on your side for gaming etc. call them or go to their office and they will most likely give u a static Ip address and they can open/increase speed of certain ports you may need.

Jonathanpbk

i just checked my connection last night on shieldsup... apparently all of my ports are closed bar a couple that were stealth!...
Really, that must be a bad thing! i'm on ntl 3MB terenure exchange and that test was done with no router attached.
Is it a bad thing!? is it a mistake? *confused*

Gman99

I use fastcom too, through a wireless router, I have set up a static ip and forwarded the ports through the guide on portforward.com but still the ports won\\\'t open. I even downloaded a port scanner and only 4 ports were open.

Could any fastcom user help me on this. I\'m in the line of sight mode.

Thanks