Vitality of Firewalls
 

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.

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.

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?

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?

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?

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.

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

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?

It sounds like you don't have total control over the modem. lol :D 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.

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".

Wow, I've never run as a UP so I'm probably not the best one to answer this. When you run as a UP people will connect thru you. So some of those files you see are just travelling via you.

Having more than one person uploading the same file or even the same person is not a major issue. I've seen that also. I do have more than one copy of some of my shared files. Particularly from my LW downld folder & iTunes.

Upload limit ... sounds as though the 2 may have been jostling for an upload position & one of them won over. After all you have a set no. of upload slots right?!

It would be healthy for uploaders to be able to have an easy access. I think the False report for incoming shows that only those that push thru your firewall are the ones succeeding.

I'll see if I can get another member to give you some advice.

Banned Greedy Servant refers to leech p2p apps that take but don't give back. They also push other p2p apps out of queues in an aggressive manner. I've witnessed it myself & despite cancelling them ... sure enough they've forced their way to the top of the queue. The other issue is they may send out many queries & requeries which bogs down the traffic on the gnutella network. ie: slows it down for everybody. The sooner we get rid of them the better for everyone.

robfir: you should desactivate UP support in ->options ->speed -> desactivate UP support, since your computer makes an obvious poor UP. I would also get a LW 4.3.x version that has a better firewall and router detection http://www.limewire.com/english/content/beta.shtml This could help you become unfirewalled and thus complete more uploads.
-you should not be asked in the upload window for files you don't have, it is weird.
-it is normal that you don't upload total files if they are popular --- people are dling from multiple hosts to finish the transfer faster (hence only a part of the file they get from you)
-since 4.2.x versions LW can do firewall to firewall transfers, to verify if you can do those while being firewalled go in options->error reports->see an exemple, if this line say FWT Capable: true, you should be fine.

Ciao ;)

robfir
 

robfir, are you seeing the "successful" uploads in your library window? Or just in your "Monitor" window? I ask since I am having the same problem. I usually see two attempts in my monitor window, one "appears" to "complete" (But now I suspect it is because they were getting "swarm" from other sources). The other attempt says "transfer interupted". I know my ZoneAlarm is set right, but I did the bug report thing and it shows "false". AND, when I look in my "Library" window I see 100s of "hits" on my files, but the other column shows 0/0. My guess is because of my location. I am physically located on a University campus in Xu Zhou, China. (Yes the country) I have NO control over the system here. My D/L is very slow, but it is D/L. I am running:

Windows XP Pro SP 1,

and

LimeWire Pro 4.4.0

AND

Java 1.4.2_06

Is there ANYthing I can do to make my up-loads go? Thanks Ed

"Great China Firewall"
 

Oops, didn't finish my statement. I meant to say, (Yes the country with the "Great China Firewall")

Force IP
 

I know there is a lot of talk in here about "Force IP", but, in this latest version of Lime Pro I have, I don't see any place for me to put any IP address to tell it to do anything. And at a Uni as I am I can't access the router or whatever they may have here. Is there ANY thing I can do to get uploads to go? Thanks Ed