Vitality of Firewalls

[robfir]

I was wondering about how useful firewalls actually are, and wheter i should shut mine down, my old pc (pre SP2 and its firewall) had no firewall, and never broke.

The concentration of hackers to computers must be very low, and my bog-standard computer must be no challenge for them. My fear is that my firewall may be protecting me from computers running programs that want to do evil things to my pc, in which case it is obviously vital.

What is my firewall actually trying to protect me from?
Will shutting it down make my LW more useful to the network by allowing more uploads?

I have friends who have shut down their firewalls, with no noticeable ill-effect, and the no.of blocked events i get daily, from LW, strikes me as ridiculous in terms of malicious attempts to get inside, it seems more likely that they are just mundane attempts to get my shared files.

[Lord of the Rings]

But if your firewalls are configured to allow LW passage you should be able to get uplds without problems. I wouldn't advise windows users to go without a firewall. Which firewalls do you have? See the most popular ones for configuring for LW here: http://www.limewire.com/english/content/firewalls.shtml

The issue might not be or just be your computer's firewalls but also your high speed modem or router which tend to have internal firewalls (generally NAT type firewalls.) Can you tell us the brand & model number of your modem/router? They may need port 6346 opened to allow people to upload from you. If you were using advanced net games or particularly video conferencing, you'd need to open up a handful of ports. But for LW only one. But then you might not have this type of issue depending on your connection devices.

[robfir]

I have opened port 6346, incoming and outgoing, on UDP and TCP/IP, in Windows and McAffee firewalls, this has improved things, but when people upload from me, I see one attempt, usually succesful after following the advice in your link, and one identical one, save for the fact that this second one says "Transfer Interupted", usually at 0%.
Is this a "push Request"? I have forced the port in limewires options, in case this helps.

I was also wonering if changing limewire's listening port would stop it conflicting with MSN messenger, if so, what port should i change to?

[Lord of the Rings]

So what type of connection & connection devices do you have? You 'might' need to forward a port for your modem/router.

Do this test: Bug Report instructions & sample image Is it True/False?

[robfir]

It replied "false", even though i have had succesful and insuccesful uploads this session.

Im connected to a "Mentor 5 port 10/100Mbps ethernet switch".

Two other computers are connected to this ethernet switch.

I dont know the name of the cables connecting the 3pcs to the switch, nor do i know the name of the socket the cable goes into.

One of the computers (not mine) is connected to the internet through a "BT Voyager 105 USB ADSL Modem" The flashing blue monitors in the bottom right of the screen inform me that this has a speed of "576.0Kbps"

This modem is connected to the computer via a USB port.

Another thing i was wondering, is this: my computer has USB2.0 sockets. The computer on our network that is connected to the modem has USB1.1 sockets. Will i have a faster internet connection if the modem was connected to one of my USB2.0 sockets?

[robfir]

Ive also been having a problem with LimeWires file transfers going to 0KBps for long periods of time.
I thought this was due to Messenger programs, but now i dont know whats going on, there seems to be no consistent trigger for this effect.
It doesnt seem to be due to excessive load on the bandwidth.

[Lord of the Rings]

It seems I asked you about your connection before: http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...threadid=31891

And you're still getting a bug report of false for incoming?!

Um I'm not sure about usb type 1 & 2 but thought their interfaces were a little different. One thing I would say however is that ethernet modems are more reliable than usb ones. usb modems generally utilitise their power from the usb port & also utilise the computer's cpu. 'In some cases' this may mean inconsistent results. I suppose it depends on the modem & how fast the computer is. For more about this see: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum...cfm?t=86201#r5 & scroll down to 3.4 USB-based modems/routers.

I don't know much about switches.

I wonder if you should also configure the firewall for LW on the the main comp that handles the connection. There must be some reason why you're not getting consistent incoming reports. Some people may be able to upld from you but these may be 'push' requests.

As far as your messenger programs go, um I suppose it depends which ones you use. Do they also do any file swapping? I'd suggest you leave LW to settle down 1st after opening before using the messenger apps.

Also try not to use the Resume function on your files to get them started. Yes this can be effective, but if applied to too many files can take the bulk out of your bandwidth & also slow both LW & your computer down. It would also mean queued files more much much longer. 2/3 to 3/4 of the time I open LW, I just let it sit in the background & my incompletes start by themselves. It might take a while before LW settles down & this happens but it does. Here's an example: http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...028#post116028

[robfir]

Ive been doing some tinkering over the last two days, so now ill see how my uploads act now.
If im still having problems, would u reccomend i seek info on any firewalls inside my modem?

[Lord of the Rings]

It sounds like you don't have total control over the modem. lol If you're still having problems then it might be an idea to see if this is permissable & if indeed there is an issue there.

[robfir]

Every time I ask another question, the answer gets my uploads more effective (my downloads were always great). I still get Transfer Interrupteds, especially with a certain .zip file (any idea why this file seems more susceptible than all my .mp3s?), but the main problem now is people uploading files; it shows up twice in the Monitor window, once as Upload Limit Reached at 0%, the other usually works, is this a problem? I have the Force IP box ticked in options on both computers.

Also, purley curiosity, what is a Banned Greedy Servant?
And when im an UP, i get ppl uploading files from me that i dont have, and have never had! Needless to say these uploads go straight to "File Not Found".