Help Topic: Port Forwarding (RE: Torrents)

[oneill.dav]

A lot of people complain about how their P2P clients, especially those of BitTorrent breed, seem to download at a snail's crawling pace. There can be a number of reasons why this is the case. It can be that the torrent is ill-seeded, the tracker is slow, and indeed it may be that you haven't configured the client and your router properly.

I myself am not an expert, but I used to be among those who didn't seem to get anywhere when downloading torrents. Now, I'm flying it! I believe it's a combination of using good port choices, having a good client and having the correct ports forwarded from inside of my router.

To help you along, here's what you should do. These steps are mainly for people who don't have UPnP support via their routers.


1. Pick a decent client. I'd always recommend µTorrent. It's a nice, no nonsense, lightweight client, that uses few system resources. There's plenty of others to choose from, though.

2. When setting up the client, be sure to pick a good port choice. I'd use anything between 25000 to 59999. Currently, I am using 37647. That was a completely random choice, by the µTorrent client.

3. The next step is to make provisions for port forwarding. To port forward effectively, you'll need to set up an internal static IP address for your PC. My PC's internal IP is always static at 192.168.1.64. I have disabled my router's ability to assign an internal dynamic IP. Unfortunetly, most routers are defaulted to having permission to do so. It's quite easy to put a stop to this once you know how. Here's an excellect site showing you just how it's meant to be done: PortForward.com - Free Help Setting up Your Static IP. Just note this: Make sure you pick a unique IP address, i.e. if you have another PC on your router using 192.168.1.64 at the time of configuration, then you will have to choose something else (like maybe 192.168.1.65).

4. Port forwarding is quite important. But, how? It's been made simple by this excellent site: PortForward.com - Free Help Setting up Your Router or Firewall. Load the page. Choose your router's exact make and model number, and then choose the application (eg. µTorrent) you wish to forward ports for. It will give you a step-by-step guide using screenshots from within your router to explain how it should be done.

5. Make sure you open the ports that you've forwarded in your firewall. The chosen port (eg. 37647) works on both TCP and UDP protocols. Make sure you open on both. I can't give you a direct guide for opening ports on your firewall; as each one is different. I'd use Google to search for a specific guide to help you with your particular firewall, if you're stuck.


It's all so easy when you put it into play. I hope this helps some of you.

Note: It's not just P2P software that requires Port Forwarding. In particular, if your router is not UPnP compatible, you may need to forward ports for a vast range of different applications. The site mentioned in Step 4 will really help you out in these scenarios.


Seifer.