Won't firewalls kill p2p?
 

As i understood, two p2p client users both behind firewalls can absolutely not download from eachother, right?

And as more people get broadband they also get stuck behind a ISP's firewalls with private ip's, that are out of the users control, (at least this is how things seem to be done in my country...) Now who are all those highbandwidth (5, 10 Mbits line) going to download from, modem and dsl users...

Eventually won't there be more firewalled users than unprotected will p2p work then??


No, i don't know anything about this subject, that's why i'm posting

The way I understand it , the newer gnutella clients can request a firewalled host to reconnect to a non firewalled client with a "push" request.

Picture this, someone has to connect to someone else, that's P2P.
To connect to someone you need a open port to connect to.
If both sides are hiding behind a firewall and are too stupid to learn to open a port, neither can talk to the other.
So stop running windows and quit being scared of every little hacker out there. Bill gates has known about all these security issues for years and hasn't done anything about them, why would you want to run a pile of crap OS like that?
Dump his crap. New Red Hat and Mandrake are out and include lots of already loaded software like word processors, browsers and more.
All for FREE!

Dude, don't be an ***!

Someone asked for information not your lame, unknowledgeble, and arrogant response.

You most certainly need to use firewalls when you use Linux, especially when you use distros like Redhat & Mandrake, which have so many things most people don't need running on default installation, like Apache, ftp, & linuxconf daemons.

So try to be nicer, especially when you don't know what you are talking about.

You are correct when you say that two p2p clients cannot connect to each other if BOTH are behind firewalls. There are a couple of things you can do to allow yourself access even when you are behind a firewall (and personaly I would never work on a computer that was not behind some sort of firewall).

1) If the firewall is local (i.e. Run from one of your computers) and not the ISP's then all you should need to do is open one port (ex. 6346 or 6347) and force your gnutella client to use a specific port (how to do this varies by firewall type and gnutella client)
*Note: If you are using Windows XP's built in firewall... I would recommend replacing it with something like Tiny Personal Firewall (do a google search, its free).

2) If the firewall is located on your ISP's router, try and find out what ports are open (some of the common ones would probaly be left open). Force your gnutella client to use a port that IS NOT USED BY ANY OTHER PROGRAM. You may have to try a few different ones until you find one that seems to work.

You can get more information on common port usage here:
<a href="http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~rakerman/port-table.html">http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~rakerman/port-table.html</a>

I have used the AIM (AOL Instant Messanger) port 5190 with sucess from school but I knew that port was open on the university server.

Good Luck... It will just take alot of trial and error

Umm, on linux you just turn off the services you don't use and the port "closes" and no restart after you change them unlike other crummy OSs
You don't worry about trojans so no need for firewalls. If a trojan was running you would know it unlike some crummy OSs where you have to pay $$ to find out, then $$ to remove it and $$ for updates, make you feel kinda foolish doesn't it?
Most new clients will return your IP back and you can then use that to force your IP.
ZoneAlarm is a nice windows firewall, but why run a trashed O$ in the first place?

Not necessarilly. I am firewalled and still have many uploads.

Ivan
"In the dark we make a brighter light"

Well, i'm using Mac OS 9.2, without any kind of software firewall.

So the problem isn't firewalls & easily opened closed ports, the real problem i realize now, and didn't empazise enough in my first post is Private IP's (10.n.n.n , 172.16.n.n , 192.168.n.n). two computers with Private IP's can absolutely not communicate, what worse is P-ip disables certain kind of chat & games. because of my stupid private ip i can't run a hotline/carracho server despite i've opened up all required ports.

Still, as i mentioned earlier most broadband ISP's uses private IP's for their customers (adsl/cable tv-internet not counted as broadband)

This means that those with high bandwith cannot download from eachother, only from "slower" sources. And eventually the majority will have Private-ip's, probably at the same time as gnutella network becomes popular...




btw, is there any program/webbsite that can check which ports i have open??

I think your address is simply being translated by a firewall, once you find out the gateway address, you should be in business.

However, your isp could also be blocking well known ports used for file sharing, check the fine print in your contract re: running servers.

I hope you are wrong about the private -ips setup, only because it is harder to deal with, but just remember, in order to connect to the internet you have to resolve to a real address somewhere in your setup.

go to http://grc.com and see if his webbased portscan app can scan you and tell you more info.

NAT is a good thing to let people connect to your PC if you're behind firewall and have local ip