Firewall/Router configuration *Updated*

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darkwraith007
Posts: 40
Joined: December 6th, 2006, 2:27 am
Location: USA

Firewall/Router configuration *Updated*

Post by darkwraith007 »

*UPDATE*
Since I haven't gotten a clear answer to my query other then a variation of 'figure it out yourself', it seems I had to use my Firewall Logs to finally figure out just what ports were being used for everything, and so I did. I found that despite the developer reassurances, the fact that Wesnoth uses so many ports seems odd to me. Further research is warranted.

Multiplayer
TCP Ports In/Out: 14997 - 15002
Default Port In/Out: 15000

Summary Uploads
UDP Ports In/Out: 53, 1027 - 1280 (odd why Wesnoth needs so many ports?)


----------------------------------------------Original Post Below----------------------------------------------

The main info
Version - Development version v1.7.5
OS - WinXP Home
Computer Stats
Intel P4 3.0 Ghz Northwood CPU
2 GB of DDR1 RAM
Nvidia GeForce FX 7950 GT Video Card
Avira Antivirus, latest version 9.0.0.410 and updated 2x a day
Comodo Personal Firewall v3.12.111745.560 and updated daily as well

The details:
Please tell me something.
Tell me something. Why the f- has this little 'open source' game that has been developed and released for years now yet doesn't have the most basic documentation on configuration of router/firewalls?

I had to spend about half an hour digging through the cluttered forums and threads in order to acquire the following information which should be posted in your wiki under the 'Multiplayer' section and the section regarding your 'anonymous summary uploads' that are done.

I need to know the protocol, the ports, and the IPs involved for both your 'stable' and 'development' versions of the game that I would configure on my firewall and router to allow me to connect to the multiplayer server and addon server without difficulties.

Right now, using the development version v1.7.5, I find that I'm unable to even connect to the multiplayer server despite having opened the entire port range of 14490-15020. I suspect there is no such server available (which would seem quite odd considering how people would go about testing multiplayer to make sure its working properly) but I'm not entirely sure. I am able to successfully access the addon server, and only then after receiving very conflicting reports among 30+ forum threads/posts regarding this very issue that never seem to agree with each other.

I really wish I were exaggerating, but for the average person trying to get friends/family into the game (and on multiplayer), it is frustrating not to have this information available.

It would greatly help to have a note on the front page that lists the status and a simple red/yellow/green indicator for the server with offline/slow/online status for both the stable and development versions AND the various addon servers. This way we aren't wasting time when its the SERVER at fault and not our configuration. It may even help clean up the forums a bit with the various issues.

I'm not terribly worried about multiplayer (still want to play through all the campaigns) but I'm hoping that this information may benefit others who have similar issues.

And yes, you worthless f-in trolls that may say 'search the forum'. I did the search and it came up with random threads on configuring a SOCKS5 proxy as well as some other babble that wasn't related to my issue. MY POINT IS I SHOULD NOT HAVE TO SEARCH FOR OVER AN HOUR THROUGH DOZENS OF THREADS JUST TO FIND THE DAMN PORT NUMBERS. PERIOD.

So please put the information requested in an easily accessible area, or even a sticky on the forum would work, doesn't matter.
And if perchance its on some obscure wiki page I haven't seen yet despite using Google searches and forum searches, then please feel free to link to the 'router/firewall' configuration page. And maybe link to it in a stickied forum thread while you're at it. :P

Thanks.

Addendum: Your anonymous summary uploads is a joke. Please just let it be a button we can push to 'manually' send the data once we have a connection to the internet, please. And have it use the same ports/protocol as the addon server (since that seems to work at least, regardless of version). Let us be able to open the folder easily and view the exact data being sent in a user-readable form before sending it. Why the hell should I trust you all and your 'honor' without knowing what I'm sending you?
Last edited by darkwraith007 on October 1st, 2009, 8:48 am, edited 2 times in total.
Max
Posts: 1449
Joined: April 13th, 2008, 12:41 am

Re: Firewall/Router configuration

Post by Max »

searched for "site:wesnoth.org firewall", second link: How do I connect to a multiplayer server, when I sit behind a restrictive firewall?
You have to open outgoing TCP port 15000 - 14997 (depending on the version you use) to play multiplayer games over the internet on the official servers.
would be nice if this could be more detailed, but all you're missing now is the servers address, it's server.wesnoth.org for all versions. you'll get redirected though to the server for your version, see here. if you really need the ip-address for your firewall someone will have an answer...
darkwraith007 wrote:Right now, using the development version v1.7.5, I find that I'm unable to even connect to the multiplayer server despite having opened the entire port range of 14490-15020. I suspect there is no such server available
after all that shouting and blaming you didn't even care to post the exact error message (or stderr.txt) as you've been asked kindly in the link above ("Forum rules - Before reporting..."). There's a good chance that there's no one on the server for 1.7. If you want to play games stick to the stable version for now...
Soliton
Site Administrator
Posts: 1680
Joined: April 5th, 2005, 3:25 pm
Location: #wesnoth-mp

Re: Firewall/Router configuration

Post by Soliton »

darkwraith007 wrote:Please tell me something.
Tell me something. Why the f- has this little 'open source' game that has been developed and released for years now yet doesn't have the most basic documentation on configuration of router/firewalls?
Because 95% of players don't need to configure anything to join the multiplayer server or download add-ons. It's fairly uncommon to restrict outgoing ports for home users. Nevertheless the manual for example contains the information you're looking for: Connect to Server
darkwraith007 wrote:Right now, using the development version v1.7.5, I find that I'm unable to even connect to the multiplayer server despite having opened the entire port range of 14490-15020. I suspect there is no such server available (which would seem quite odd considering how people would go about testing multiplayer to make sure its working properly) but I'm not entirely sure.
The development server is up and running fine with some people on at pretty much any time of the day.
darkwraith007 wrote:It would greatly help to have a note on the front page that lists the status and a simple red/yellow/green indicator for the server with offline/slow/online status for both the stable and development versions AND the various addon servers. This way we aren't wasting time when its the SERVER at fault and not our configuration. It may even help clean up the forums a bit with the various issues.
The multiplayer and add-on servers are online anytime wesnoth.org is.
darkwraith007 wrote:MY POINT IS I SHOULD NOT HAVE TO SEARCH FOR OVER AN HOUR THROUGH DOZENS OF THREADS JUST TO FIND THE DAMN PORT NUMBERS. PERIOD.
You are welcome to demand your money back.
darkwraith007 wrote:Addendum: Your anonymous summary uploads is a joke. Please just let it be a button we can push to 'manually' send the data once we have a connection to the internet, please. And have it use the same ports/protocol as the addon server (since that seems to work at least, regardless of version). Let us be able to open the folder easily and view the exact data being sent in a user-readable form before sending it. Why the hell should I trust you all and your 'honor' without knowing what I'm sending you?
The data being uploaded is cleverly hidden in a dir named 'upload' in your userdata dir. It is gzip compressed like the savegames and trivially viewable with a decent editor and/or decompression software. If you do not trust what is being sent you are welcome to turn the feature off or look at the code to see what is being done. I'm guessing you don't really care but that is one major feature open source projects are about.
"If gameplay requires it, they can be made to live on Venus." -- scott
darkwraith007
Posts: 40
Joined: December 6th, 2006, 2:27 am
Location: USA

Re: Firewall/Router configuration

Post by darkwraith007 »

Thanks for the replies. I'll respond to a few.
Soliton wrote:Because 95% of players don't need to configure anything to join the multiplayer server or download add-ons. It's fairly uncommon to restrict outgoing ports for home users.
If anyone doesn't restrict outgoing traffic, either they're using the built-in crappy Windows Firewall or they have no firewall at all. Either method is unacceptable for normal computer security unless they're running a Linux distro, and even with any Linux distro it wouldn't hurt to STILL have a firewall handy, if only to monitor traffic for privacy reasons (making sure certain applications aren't mysteriously sending data that you don't want them to send, or making sure applications don't connect to the internet and interrupt your game while you're playing it). I do see in-game that if you do a 'view list' of Multiplayer Servers that it shows the port as 15000, which is good.
Soliton wrote:The development server is up and running fine with some people on at pretty much any time of the day.
Actually, this is incorrect. I was able to connect to both of the 'alternate' multiplayer servers #2 and #3, but not the 'official' BfW server. So yes it is something server-side where it either isn't configured to accept the version I have or isn't online as stated. The 'error' I get is 'Could not connect to host' which is fairly self-explanatory. Since I can connect to both of the 'alternate' servers, it shows indeed that my configuration on my computer is fine, and its a server-side issue with that particular server.
Soliton wrote:The multiplayer and add-on servers are online anytime wesnoth.org is.
It doesn't take much to have someone stick a 'server status' indicator on the main page so that I wouldn't need to waste your time or mine in trying to convince you that the 'official' wesnoth server is NOT working with the v1.7.5 dev version but the other two are fine. Perhaps it would benefit the community to at least consider that request, if nothing else. In fact I know someone who used to do coding for the website for a private WoW server, and he could fit something up for a 'server status' for the Wesnoth multiplayer & addon servers and have it display on the main page. I could get in touch with him if such a feature is deemed worthy of inclusion upon the main page. Thing is that if the server status were available, we'd instantly know if the server itself is down or if its a configuration issue, rather then having to guess at it, although I'd take a guess its the latter issue if it supports both stable and dev versions. If the stable-version people are able to connect to it then it just might not be flagged to accept the dev version connections.
Soliton wrote:The data being uploaded is cleverly hidden in a dir named 'upload' in your userdata dir. It is gzip compressed like the savegames and trivially viewable with a decent editor and/or decompression software. If you do not trust what is being sent you are welcome to turn the feature off or look at the code to see what is being done. I'm guessing you don't really care but that is one major feature open source projects are about.
I have currently 'disabled' the feature and thus I don't have anything in that directory. No files are there, nothing. I've played through a few scenarios and nothing is there, so I don't know whether its just waiting until I enable it to start saving data or w/e. Rather then being arrogant, it wouldn't hurt to have provided a link to a wiki/forum location that specifies just what, when, and how the data is being transmitted. I'm a bit of a stickler when it comes to programs automatically sending data that I don't know about. I'd gladly analyze the data if it appeared in that directory, however since no files are there, I'd have to enable the 'feature' and possibly having it send stuff without my knowledge (unless I blocked it with my firewall) and THEN have to wait for it to save something so I can actually see what its sending.

Again, it wouldn't hurt to actually describe it rather then saying 'decompress it and figure it out for yourself' like an arrogant whelp. There are people who aren't able to read code and decipher it properly. Perhaps even providing a link or 'example code' so we can see the format of what it sends and how it sends it, thereby better understanding what it does.

Open source is all well and good, but its only as good as the people who make it. A lot of trust is instilled and that doesn't mean that malicious code can't be slipped in under the radar at the last moment. Its up to the users to make sure of that.
Soliton
Site Administrator
Posts: 1680
Joined: April 5th, 2005, 3:25 pm
Location: #wesnoth-mp

Re: Firewall/Router configuration

Post by Soliton »

darkwraith007 wrote:Since I can connect to both of the 'alternate' servers, it shows indeed that my configuration on my computer is fine, and its a server-side issue with that particular server.
Nice logic, if you have no clue how the internet works. I suppose according to that I can reverse it and say I can connect to the server just fine which means it must be the configuration of your computer...
darkwraith007 wrote:Thing is that if the server status were available, we'd instantly know if the server itself is down or if its a configuration issue, rather then having to guess at it, although I'd take a guess its the latter issue if it supports both stable and dev versions. If the stable-version people are able to connect to it then it just might not be flagged to accept the dev version connections.
I'm administrating the servers and they're running fine. I see it is a waste of time to respond to you since you know better anyway so I'll leave it at that.
"If gameplay requires it, they can be made to live on Venus." -- scott
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