I added a Linksys router/hub to a friend's cable modem. As per instructions, I looked at 192.68.1.1 with my browser to get the IP address of the cable modem. I put that address in the "Report this address for accepting IP connections" in the Bearshare setup and all was well.

So I tried with my computer. I have a DSL which uses PPPoE. I got an XSense router/hub (PalmRouter PR-100), read the IP address of my DSL modem, copied that into the Bearshare setup and-- it mostly did not work. That is, I could search and sometimes download, and sometimes get "No push route". People could search my files but either didn't want or couldn't download.

Back to the XSense setup pages and the manual, I read about "virtual servers" which is apparently their term for port forwarding. But I couldn't find any place to set that up. Well, guess what? The router didn't come with that stuff. After going to www.xsense.com and getting and installing a firmware update, the 192.168.1.1 pages had a whole lot more stuff, including a "virtual servers" page. But I was still having problems. I let port 6346 thru to my computer (192.168.1.100) and it still didn't seem to work. With further reading here, I learned that maybe Bearshare also uses port 6669? So I let that thru. I also went to the "Special Application" page of the XSense setup and tried adding BearShare to the application list, using the name "BearShare" altho the various task lists report the program name as "BearShare 2.4.1" or "BearShare.exe". Not clear exactly what name to use. I don't think that part does anything. It must be the port 6669 part because suddenly people started downloading my files after I let that thru. I'm still getting lots of "No push route" on my download attempts.

Could BearShare use yet another port they didn't mention in their inadequate documentation? But why didn't I have to explicitly configure the Linksys router to allow ports 6346, 6669 and whatever else? Is the Linksys a better, more automatic router or a less secure router? I found that Mozilla (version 0.9.7) couldn't download files from web pages thru the XSense router until I put 192.168.1.1 in the "Edit - Preferences - Advanced - Proxies - Automatic Proxy Configuration Url:" and turned it on. I didn't have to do anything special to download files thru the Linksys router.