Open ports on Netopia Wireless Router

fletch

Anybody know how I open ports on the Netopia 3347WG router?!!
I've had a good flick through the menu but it's not very obvious. I've tried the following
http://192.168.1.254/ - Expert Mode - Configure - Advanced - NAT - Define Custom Service - Trigger Ports
On the next screen there are two options
Global Port Range: and Global Port Range:
I want to open port 6881 but not sure what to enter.

Gone West

port 6881, eh?
:rollseyes:
Well, youre trying to open this port for bittorrent downloads.
i'd suggest you simply open 6000 to 7000
global port range starts at 6000 and finishes at 7000.
If it asks you for an IP range, just put in 1.1.1.0 as the start and 254.254.254.0 as your end.

fletch

FuzzyLogic wrote:

port 6881, eh?
:rollseyes:
Well, youre trying to open this port for bittorrent downloads.
i'd suggest you simply open 6000 to 7000
global port range starts at 6000 and finishes at 7000.
If it asks you for an IP range, just put in 1.1.1.0 as the start and 254.254.254.0 as your end.

That's all great but...has anyone got first hand experience of opening a port on the Netopia wireless Eircom router. It shouldn't be this difficult. Here's a screenshot. What dya reckon I put into each of the required fields?

Chalk

service name bittorrent
range 6881-6885 [more if your intending on having more than 3 of 4 torrents running at once]
local trigger port 6881


dont open 1000 ports up for security reasons.

Chalk

just a question, is there port forwarding instead of triggering?
triggering isnt the best option for bt

fletch

Chalk wrote:

just a question, is there port forwarding instead of triggering?
triggering isnt the best option for bt

Yes there is....what would you suggest

Gone West

OP: You should open 6000 - 7000. If you want to have a bunch of torrents running at the same time you will need most of these ports open. There is no security risk.
Here, I'll even edit that screengrab

Chalk

you dont need 1000 ports open,
just the ones you want to receive data on,
ie 6881-6885
simple as that.
why you think having 1000 ports open is a good thing is beyond me.

worms etc use open ports on systems to hijack them,
having 1000 ports open makes you more susceptible to that risk,
although a software firewall will protect you,
its still nice to have that extra line of defence.

StickyMcGinty

dont forget you need to enable the new service on the custom service screen too!

just select "bittorrent" from the dropdown menu and click enable.

Gone West

Chalk wrote:

worms etc use open ports on systems to hijack them,
having 1000 ports open makes you more susceptible to that risk,
although a software firewall will protect you,
its still nice to have that extra line of defence.

Worms will haijack your system!
Bullsh*t.
If you want to get decent speeds, you will need to open up a bunch of ports.
I found that my overall download speed stalled at around 800kilobytes a second when I only had 500 ports open. However, opening them up right to 7000 sorted the problem. My combined download speed now hits 1300 kb/sec.
But of course this will depend on the number of connections that each torrent is making with another client. And indeed how many simultaneous torrents you download.
Many Isps have an automated system of blocking ports in the torrent-like ports if they show too much traffic.

I value extra download speed higher than the .1% risk of trojan hijacks.

Chalk

look,
if you dont believe in virii thats your problem

im not trying to get into an argument with you,
but what your saying makes no sense.

opening a port that isnt in use does nothing.
simple as that.
to run one torrent takes 1 port in bittorando,
to run multiple takes 1 port in azureus.

unless your running 1000 torrents 1000 ports is pointless.
no isp will block you for excessive traffic on 1 random port,
on the known p2p ports maybe,
but theres no record of that happening in ireland anyway.

so to sum up,
there is no extra speed gained by opening 2 ports when your only using 1,
much less opeing 1000 when your only using 1.
its your call what you do with your system but providing bad advice isnt on.

Gone West

worms etc use open ports on systems to hijack them

Look. You must have something running allready on one of these ports for a worm to 'hijack' it.

no isp will block you for excessive traffic on 1 random port,
on the known p2p ports maybe,
but theres no record of that happening in ireland anyway.

Wrong and wrong.
(wrong 1)My isp, cox.net has a policy of blocking ports between the 6000-7000 range when theres seriously high traffic on it. Thats why many people set their bittorrent clientsto use a random port between 6 and 7k. So when my ISP blocks port 6500 because I transferred 500 mb of data on it, my client automatically switches to another port.

No popular services except bittorrent run between 6000-7000. There is NO danger of anything happening.

(wrong 2)Irish isps DO throttle specific ports in specific cases. If a downloader is transferring gigs and gigs of data, on a basic bb package, Esat and UTV have been known to throttle 6881-6999.
Hence opening up 6000-7000.
--
I do believe in viri, yes. But I find that when I have no services running on 6-7k, then opening up those ports is no risk.

To sum up.
Yes, 1000 ports is a little overkill, but it lies well within the margins of acceptability.
Its your call what you do. But giving flawed advice and stating your opinion as fact isnt on.

OfflerCrocGod

FuzzyLogic wrote:

To sum up.
Yes, 1000 ports is a little overkill, but it lies well within the margins of acceptability.
Its your call what you do. But giving flawed advice and stating your opinion as fact isnt on.

What torrent client do you use? If you use Azerus or another single port client opening ports which it doesn't use or need will not make a difference to the client. I suggest you simply change to Azerus it's a very good client, the default torrent client uses many ports but they are not necessary. If the port is blocked opening up more ports which are not used solves nothing: the solution is to simply use an open port that the application KNOWS it should use. The fact that ports 6000-7000 are open means nothing to an application that only requests port 6881 from the OS.

fletch

VinnyL wrote:

dont forget you need to enable the new service on the custom service screen too!

just select "bittorrent" from the dropdown menu and click enable.

That's great, exactly what I was looking for, works grand now