I have been using limewire in all it's guises for a few years now and have been happy with it most of the time (crawling over down to business)

can anyone out there tell me what ports limewire uses apart from 6346 & 6347 (and what they are doing)
cos i'm getting a few problems with norton firewall on OSX when some high range ports are opening with limewire startup that I hadn't noticed before now cos I was using the built in OSX firewall

I've never heard a definitive answer to the question about ports (the usual answer is that it doesn't matter), but if your LW uses iTunes, iTunes now wants 3689 open for sharing too.

On my router, though, both TCP and UDP need to be allowed for each port.

A while back 45100 was thought to be needed for magnets since it was noted as active with LW see here for details

I thought if this is still unclear I do a bit of research and summarize the ports LimeWire uses and what ports need to be opened in a firewall setup. I differentiate two cases:

* Direct connection to the internet (Modem, PPPoe, LAN directly to your computer)
* External NAT Router (increasingly used with DSL)

In the first case the only firewall used is probably a personal firewall directly installed on the PC, in the second case a personal firewall is not needed as the external NAT router blocks all external connection attempts and forwards only selected ports. LimeWire uses the following ports and protocols:

* 6346 using both TCP and UDP for GNUTELLA
* 6347 using only UDP for multicasting
* 45100 using only TCP for MAGNET

In case you manage to start a second instance of LimeWire or run several versions at the same time (or even other file sharing applications also using the GNUTELLA protocol) LimeWire will start to increment the port numbers for GNUTELLA and MAGNET until it finds a free port. As this situation is not predictable and also probably not desirable from a bandwith management standpoint I ignore this behavior.

The MAGNET port (45100) is only used for internal communication between multiple instances of LimeWire or communication of browsers with LimeWire for forwarding magnet: style URLs. It does not need to be opened to the outside, even if you publish magnet URLs to your servent. On OS X this is not used, there AppleEvents are used to transfer magnet: URLs from browsers to LimeWire.

The multicast port (6347) is used only in a local area network setup, for example a school network or company network. It is used to quickly find sources without actually querying the GNUTELLA network, just by sending the query packets to interested parties on the LAN. If you use a personal firewall and want to find sources on your school or university network you should open this port for UDP traffic.

The GNUTELLA port (6346) is used with both TCP and UDP protocols for the bulk of file sharing and is the most interesting one. This port must always be opened in your personal firewall to be able to find sources on the Internet. In the case where a NAT router is used it gets a bit complicated: as by principle a network address translation setup makes your PC's IP address invisible to the outside world you must instruct your NAT router to accept connections on the GNUTELLA port and forward this to the hidden PC. Most routers have setup screens for configuring this. I recommend to use both 6346 for the port used on the router and the forwarded port on your PC, as otherwise the situation gets even more complicated as it is already. There is one exception: if your ISP throttles GNUTELLA traffic it might work better if you use a different port for GNUTELLA, but still use the same number for both what the NAT router accepts and where it forwards that connection to.

If you use a NAT router and did configure it to forward incoming connection on 6346 to your PC you also need to inform LimeWire of the fact by turning on the option or preference in the "Expert/Firewalls" dialog to force your IP address.

thanks for the input people it is appreciated

my system is as follows cable modem 1/2 Meg service with a unex router ,which has it's own firewall (web configured) but is not used . this links a PC(offsprings choice ) and my Mac to the outside world
I recently (3months )updated to OSX from 9 where i never had a problem with my norton personal firewall. it worked period.
i only seem to have had any bother since I put norton P F into OSX . maybe i'll deinstall norton and see how i get on as it is being a pain. For some reason i can't even access the web at the moment without disabling the firewall

i definitely need to learn a bit more about what i'm doing although I seem to have done ok before. Maybe there is too much to play with and i'm getting badly wrong

i downloaded the newest freeware version of limewire 4.8.1 and it started off good. Dowloads went up as high as 20 kb/s.
i have a DSL connection through a personal router i cannot access. i came home one day to find that download speeds have seized to go beyond 5 kb/s at best (usuallu shows 0ks/s). it has been the case for at least a week now.
i dont understand what happened
i tried looking for an answer on the forums, but everything ive tried doesnt work. and i still get FALSE for 'recieved incomming this session'
i get an excellent connection almost always when opening limewire and my search speeds are good...... but my download speed is a mess


any suggestions would be much appreciated ....
am willing to provide extra info if needed

mo80

Yesterday, I purchased a Mac for the first time (a new powerbook), and although the computer is wicked awesome, I am now limewireless. I tried the OSX suggestions on the limewire page to set up my firewalls as follows:
OS X FIREWALL:

To open the OS X Firewall for Gnutella access, please do the following:
1.Open up 'System Preferences'
2.In 'Internet & Network', open 'Sharing'.
3.Select the 'Firewall' tab (your Firewall should be on)
4.Select 'New...'
5.From the 'Port Name' drop down box, select 'Gnutella/LimeWire'
6.Select 'OK'
7.Restart your LimeWire application.

However, on step 5, Gnutella/Limewire does not show up as an option. I tried making a new one with the reccomended TCP and UDP settings, but I still cannot connect to the network. So, here is my question: What am I doing wrong, and EXACTLY what should I write in the TCP and UDP boxes? Thanks you so much for any help you can provide to this mac 'noob'.

Trevor

I should also add that I'm trying to access Limewire via a wireless connection at the Univesity of Alberta. I don't think they block p2p (I never had trouble with any of the windows based p2p's I used before), but I figured I should let you know in case that there is something else I need to do.

Trevor

Assuming you run 10.4, on 'New...', choose 'other' for port name, enter 'LimeWire' or whatever is useful, then you will have 2 fields to enter TCP and UP port number. Both be filled with 6346. Then click all the OK's there are and refire your app. Don't be afraid to experiment with your mac, it is very forgiving.

Hey guys i have a similar problem

Try to download stuff from Limewire at Latrobe Uni, Melb, Australia, and it fails to connect. Does anybody have any advice for removing this firewall (if this is the problem) for WinXP?