Help needed with Port Forwarding

[KamiKaze PMS]

So my ISP, provided by my university, has stopped all access to online games indeffinately from where i live. And as i have no landline and no other access im a bit...say...up said creek without a said paddle.

Now then, the ports that are availible to me are those used by firefox and also Windows Live messenger. The theory is to run the games through the messenger ports that are open. But i got a bit confused with it all.

I downloaded NetworkActiv to do the portforwarding but i need some help either with this program or another that you may have experience with to get it working.

The programs i need to use are:

Quake 4
UT3
Soldier of FOrtune 2
WoW (dont hurt me....)
xfire
ventrillo

Please help a damsel in distress!

Cheers, Kami

[Mouse_On_Mars]

You need a box outside the firewall to do the forwarding. We used to do it but it was very slow and unreliable. But if you have good peering and bandwidth, some where, then you should be ok.

[Neon]

You want that SSL tunneling thingy. I'd be interested to see how it all works myself really. It's a bit confusing.

Someone will help you out I'm sure!

[AcidUK]

The only way I've managed to do this is to have a computer with a decent connection elsewhere, and route the data through that.

Its not easy, but I've sorted a few people out with it.

I'd go through the setup for it, but it doesnt sound like you have such a box availible :(

[KamiKaze PMS]

nope :( Just spent a small fortune on this computer.

Well ive been playing with port forwarding for a few hours now with no luck...cant even ping a vent server through cmd without it timing out.

[Baz]

I had the fun of doing this stuff 4 years ago. In the end, i only ever got COD2 to run through the ports, and utterly failed to get anything bar that, bittorrent and IRC to SSH tunnel properly. I also required no small amount of help from many of the forum members here. In the end, it really wasn't worth the effort. Have you thought about trying wireless Broadband from the mobile phone providers? 3, tmobile, they all offer 3g boradband dongles, 3gb limit, but only £20 a month, although i'm not sure of the pings you'd be getting.

In the end, it's cheaper to 1. just play single player games, or 2. go out, and get drunk a lot, as most students do!

[kandy]

3G would be crap for playing games. Use these alot at work.

I take it you can't just have a phone line and DSL installed in the halls (or wherever you live) then??

[Baz]

i also investigated putting in a phone line, and it would cost you hundreds to install, and then 18 months line rental with BT (as it's a newly laid line) and then your broadband on top. Bye Bye student loan!

[Elkeeed]

Are you within wifi distance of anywhere that might have an unrestricted connection? In my first year at Uni we had no direct internet and we just ran cables for lan gaming.

[Jez_Gafys]

3G would be crap for playing games. Use these alot at work.

I take it you can't just have a phone line and DSL installed in the halls (or wherever you live) then??

3G is perfect for wow, ive played wow many times on long car journies whilst my wife is driving.

Like ppl have said see if you can set up a VPN connection to someone external and within the TCP/IP advanced properties make sure "Use default gateway on remote network" is checked. That way all your internet traffic will route out through the remote line and not yours, this method though can be slow.

[KamiKaze PMS]

yeah i cant get a line installed unfortunately.

I live right in liverpool city centre, which is covered by wi-fi. There are a number of hotspots near by but i live on the 11th floor of an apartment building so not sure how that would affect it. Im not to familiar with wi-fi tbh.

[AdamR]

A lot of games don't work through tunneling, tried this using my home server (SSH'd in to it etc) to bypass our uni firewall that only allows ports 21, 80, and 443.

Are you paying the university for your Internet connection? If so you should really complain. I mean, you're paying for an Internet connection to do anything you please that is legal. Not just a website connection.

[Hg]

AdamR this is what i have said to Kami, She Needs to take this further they changed the service without pior notice and expects her to solely use the net, Kami paid for a service which no longer meets her needs.

I have been looking into mobile broadband for you, i would be careful of the bandwidth and download limits i have heard some stories about people runnin up huge bills using such thinks, but for games like wow im sure your be ok as long as u keep an eye on your usage and try and download updates via the Uni’s ISP.

However 3 mobile broadband looks good http://www.three.co.uk/personal/products_services_/mobile_broadband_/detail.omp
Your within there Turbo Network range and as such will benefit from speeds of up to 2.8mbs.

Jez_Gafys could u explain abit more about mobile broadband and roughly how much u pay and for what? As kami is a student she needs to ensure its not OTT

[kandy]

3G is perfect for wow, ive played wow many times on long car journies whilst my wife is driving.

Ok WoW might work for questing etc, I highly doubt you was taking part in a 40man raid on it though.

Also try running CoD4 or CS on 3G, have fun

[Jez_Gafys]

Jez_Gafys could u explain abit more about mobile broadband and roughly how much u pay and for what? As kami is a student she needs to ensure its not OTT


I am with Vodafone, and on average I do get good coverage offering me HSDPA @ 1.8mbps (effectively 3.5G) which is faster then many dsl lines. Not sure on the upload speed I will check it out. It's about £17.99/month for a 2Gb/month allowance. The software also supports sending sms messages which is also handy and they seem to come off the data allowance and are not charged seperatly.

One bonus thing for you is that I find the signal strength (so better speeds) is generally better when near Universities, I wonder if many of them are fitted with aerials?

Mobile broadband is so much better then as little as 12 months ago, back then the service was about £30/month for a 250mb allowance. And with speeds getting better all the time its become a much more usable service.

I am going to do a test now, ill load wow up and do and upload and download and let you know ping times, speeds and what my connection strength was.

[kandy]

I am going to do a test now, ill load wow up and do and upload and download and let you know ping times, speeds and what my connection strength was.

Cheers, would be interesting to see.

[Jez_Gafys]

OK I am connected now to the vodafone and here are my results. I did it at two locations as I know one of them gives me a low signal.



Signal Strength: High
Speed 1.4mbps

WOW Ping 94-125 more then playable, but like mentioned maybe not perfect for big raids

Speedtest results
Downstream: 1432kb/s
Upstream: 172kb/s

Download random file from MPUK FTP: 152KB/sec


----------------------------

Signal Strength: Low
Speed 384 Kbps

WOW Ping 120-154 more then playable, but like mentioned maybe not perfect for big raids

Speedtest results
Downstream: 179kb/s
Upstream: 172kb/s

This time the downstream was hit hard but weirdly the up stayed the same.

Download random file from MPUK FTP: 92KB/sec - Still usable


So the best thing to do is make sure you have good signal strength without it the service is really only good for web browsing, if you have top signal strength I think it could be more then capable for gaming.


The connection load also shows for 16 minutes worth I have used 6.9 MB

[Hg]

Jez_Gafys that seems very good tbh, better then me on a 512k dsl line :(
Also i can not see how this would have a bearing on a 40man raid, it looks like it would be no different to an average 1mb line.

[Jez_Gafys]

I think mobile broadband can be prone to poor latency which could then have adverse effects on raids?

[KamiKaze PMS]

ya im a big raider with my current guild in black temple/hyjal however i am on the US servers and on this comp ususally run with a ping of 280ms, top playable limit is 600 for me. But im also doing some work for iPMS lately involving 1v1 shootouts. Im going to germany next month with them. Besides moving though i think mobile broadband is probably hte only way to go.

I paid £150 for internet from sept to june. I was originally told when i went to find out about why games had been stopped was that it was in the terms and conditions that the net is for educational purposes only. I scoured the t&cs says nothing of that however they are within their rights to change the connection at any time. There is still the argument that now it has been changed that the net no longer meets my needs and so try and demand a different provider. However i dont think this is pysically possible with how the net is set up here. oh well.