SmoothWall and eMule Q

[LiamC]

Hi all, I've had SmoothWall up and running for a week now and things are going well.

eMule tells me I need to open some ports on a firewall (if I have one) to work properly. Can someone give me some pointers on how to open a port. Do I even need to do this? Is it risky?

According to eMule:
..."All ports listed here have to be opened in the firewall’s rule set. As most Windows firewalls are application based you can save yourself some trouble by adding a rule which allows the eMule.exe all UPD,TCP traffic on all ports in all directions. This will not compromise your security, as no exploits of eMule are known so far."...

The ports eMule wants open are:

1) Local Port: 4662
Remote Port: any
Protocol: TCP
Direction: incoming
Purpose: Client Port / Connections from other clients, Client to Client Source Exchange

Note: You can change this port in Preferences -> Connection -> Client Port
This port has to be forwarded in a router. Changing this port in Preferences you must also change the forwarding in the router



2) Local Port: any
Remote Port: 4662
Protocol: TCP
Direction: outgoing
Purpose: Client Port / Connections to other clients, Client to Client Source Exchange

Note: 4662 is the default port, but other clients may have different settings. Change the remote port to any when configuring a firewall



3) Local Port: 4672
Remote Port: any
Protocol: UDP
Direction: incoming
Purpose: extended eMule protocol, Queue Rating, File Reask Ping

Note: This port has to be forwarded in a router. Changing this port in Preferences you must also change the forwarding in the router.
If you are not able to forward this port check the disable box in Preferences -> Connection -> UDP Port



4) Local Port: any
Remote Port: 4672
Protocol: UDP
Direction: outgoing
Purpose: extended eMule protocol, Queue Rating, File Reask Ping

Note: 4672 is the default port, but other clients may have different settings. Change the remote port to any when configuring a firewall

5) Local Port: any
Remote Port: 4661
Protocol: TCP
Direction: outgoing
Purpose: Connection to server


Note: 4661 is the default port of a server. Many server use different ports. Configuring a firewall the remote port again changes to any.



6) Local Port: any
Remote Port: 4665
Protocol: UDP
Direction: outgoing / (incoming)
Purpose: Source asking on servers , searching for files
Note: Servers using the default port 4661 TCP (see #5) automatically set their port for source asking to 4665 UDP. If a server uses a different port in #5 the corresponding UDP port is set to [Connection Port + 4]. For firewalls the remote port here is any.

UDP is a connectionless protocol, i.e. unlike TCP no connection is kept alive. If a server answers e.g. a source request this answer is treated as a new connection. All commonly used routers and firewalls in the home computer sector perform an UDP connection tracking therefore it is not necessary to specify an incoming port for UDP in the router's or firewall's configuration. More complex networks, especially if proxy servers are used, may require to define this local port to configure the router / firewall / proxy accordingly or to disable it at all if it is not possible to control them. It is possible to set this port in Preferences -> Preferences.ini but there is usually no need to change it.


7) Local Port: 4711
Remote Port: any
Protocol: TCP
Direction: incoming
Purpose: Web Interface
Note: This is the default port for the web interface. When using a router this port has to be forwarded or no connection to the web interface will be possible.

I use SmoothWall as a proxy (just for kicks) and the network config is Green + Red.

TIA.

 

[ddrueding]

Yes, you need to open the ports marked as "incoming" and forward them to the machine you are running eMule on.

After logging onto the web admin interface of the smoothwall, go to the "networking" tab. The first sub-tab will be "port forwarding".

Leave the external IP blank, add the source port and make the destination the IP address of your internal machine. It will be more reliable if you have the target machine use a static IP address or a DHCP reservation. Leave the Destination port blank as well. Choose either "UDP" or "TCP" as required and press"Add"

 

[LiamC]

Thanks. At the moment, I have the machines use SmoothWall's DHCP server to obtain their IP. How do I "reserve" an IP for a particular machine?

 

[ddrueding]

Thanks. At the moment, I have the machines use SmoothWall's DHCP server to obtain their IP. How do I "reserve" an IP for a particular machine?

Find out what your client's MAC address is. If you are running XP the easiest way is to:

Right-click on Network Neighborhood, choose properties
Right-click on your NIC, choose status
Go to the second tab (support) and click on the details button.
The line that says "Physical Address" is the correct value*

Go back into the Smoothwall admin webpage.
Go to the Services tab and the DHCP sub-tab
Near the bottom is a section called "Static Assignments"
Type in the Name of the PC, it's MAC address, and the IP you want it to have (from within the DHCP pool).
Then follow the steps above to forward the relevant ports to that same IP address.

Finally, renew the IP adddress on your client PC. Make sure it is the same as the static one you set. The most common error is getting the MAC wrong.



*This value is hard-coded into your NIC, and will remain the same though formats and everything else. Some give you the chance to change it to something else in the OS.

 

[LiamC]

Thanks again - kind of defeats the purpose of DHCP though. I might go static.

 

[ddrueding]

Thanks again - kind of defeats the purpose of DHCP though. I might go static.

Not really. It still keeps the management at the server, all the configuration off the workstation, and is earier to configure than a static IP. All you need to do is key the IP itself, DNS, gateway and subnet are automatically pulled from the DHCP pool.

 

[LiamC]

D'OH! I bow to your superior wisdom

 

[Tea]

Neat one Dave! I didn't know you could do that.

 

[ddrueding]

Tea, You didn't know that I knew? Or you didn't know it was possible? If the latter, thanks. If the former, .

 

[Howell]

As David menationed above, this function is genericly called a "DHCP reservation".

 

[Tea]

Well, both, actually, Dave.

 

[The Grammar Police]

Hmmmm .... That is quite possibly a world record, Tea. A four word sentence with three commas (and a full stop just for good measure). You don't feel that you are under-punctuating a little, Small Hairy One? Are you comfortable that your sentence above is ready to meet the world as-is, with no need for the extra support and clarification that a pair of em dashes would provide? A semi-colon or three? No?

Very well.

Anytime you feel a need to learn how to write sentences in English, give me a call. I'll be pleased to help.

 

[mubs]

Bah, snob. I didn't see anything wrong with Tea's sentence. Leave her alone, will ya?

 

[ddrueding]

Gee, thanks, Tea; I appreciate it.


How's that, GP?