[Turey]

Well, I know a ton of multiplayer games do it flawlessly... how??  To name a few: Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (Open Source), Tremulous (Open Source Q3A), Urban Terror 4.0 (Open Source Q3A), Halo for PC,... so how do they do it?  UPnP?  It seems unlikely, given that some routers don't have it enabled by default.  There has to be a way that they are either auto-configuring it, or they just don't need TCP and/or UDP ports open.  Again, how?

I think many of them use non-player-run servers. If you're not hosting, you really don't have problems.

[Unknown Target]

Not true at all...many times people who aren't hosting can't see all the games on the list, or one person can see another person's game but not vica-versa.

And many games use player-run dedicated servers as well and don't have similar problems.

[Turey]

Not true at all...many times people who aren't hosting can't see all the games on the list, or one person can see another person's game but not vica-versa.

And many games use player-run dedicated servers as well and don't have similar problems.

It depends on whether or not they have the player servers run through the main server.

[CP5670]

I don't know of any multiplayer game that requires you to forward ports if you are not hosting, regardless of whether you're joining a standalone or player-hosted game. Does FS2 make you do this at the moment?

[Unknown Target]

Yes, it does. And even then it's a crap shoot as to whether or not it will work - it's something I've been *****ing about for a long time.

[CP5670]

That definitely should not be necessary on the client end. Even D2X-XL, for all the multiplayer issues we've had with it, never required that.

[karajorma]

To be honest I don't know. But the simple fact is that whatever they are doing is something they were designed to do from the start. Not something that was bolted on at a later date.

After the little multiplayer weekend thing I'm pretty certain that there isn't a single person who isn't having visibility problems due to anything other than firewalls. At least no one that turned up was. It was always due to poorly configured firewalls or dodgy NAT/PAT. 

[jr2]

  Halo doesn't require you to forward your ports if you're hosting... I don't think the others do, either.  Hmm, but I think they all use a master server to coordinate both dedicated and player-hosted servers.  Oh, and let me assure you that I did have my firewall & router configured !  Hmm.  I mean, even D2X-XL at least ran, albeit with bugs.  I could see the other two players that joined.  I had no problems; just one other player's game crashed.

It's not so much that forwarding your ports is a problem, it's just that it's so darned confusing.  Before I got it figured out, I'm like "Why do I need a static IP?  I guess so they can connect... but that's gonna be a security vulnerability..?"  I didn't realize that there are two layers, one internal and one external (and maybe more!) that we were talking about.

The reason you needed a static IP was so that your computer would have the same internal (within your router's control group) access number, so that the router could know which computer needed the ports forwarded.  I didn't need an external (visible to the outside Internet) static IP at all.  PortForward.com's router config page was a Godsend... it cleared up so many things for me, as well as having FAQs etc, etc.  It was like karajorma's FS FAQ for routers!

Anyways, I digress..

[karajorma]

Actually Port Forward give rather bad advice when they tell people to assign a static IP. The much more sensible thing to do is to assign a reservation in the router instead (Mine calls it a Static DHCP Clients List instead but it's exactly the same thing). That allows you to still acquire your ISP's DNS info via DHCP while still giving you all the benefits of a static IP address. That way you aren't completely ****ed when you change ISPs and have forgotten that you have a static IP address. Otherwise you'll spend hours wondering why some things can connect to the net and others can't.

That's probably the main reason I haven't simply been telling everyone to go to portforward.com because the rest of their advice is spot on.

[jr2]

  karajorma doesn't get it!  Woot!  I get to teach him something.  Makes me feel a little less stupid... err... I think!     One can always dream...

Your static IP in this case has NOTHING to do with your ISP.  It has to do with your router, which is located on YOUR side of the connection.

Like this:
 ISP < Cable/DSL Modem < Router < computer(s)

The Router needs to be able to forward your computers' ports.  So, you tell your computer to ask for a specific IP from your router, which it will grant.  Now, this (Static) IP is ONLY used inside your connection and is the ONLY assigned IP in this arrangement; outside (from Modem < Router, acquired by DHCP) appears as another single IP.  And, from ISP < Modem is another single IP; this one is also aquired by DHCP and changed on a schedule (unless you have a static IP through your ISP, which you don't need in this case).

So, basically, then you can configure your router to forward ports to the IP that you've told your computer to request.

Now, a static IP from your ISP is another thing all together.  This assigns you an IP that can access your connection (and, if your ports are open, your computers) from the Internet, ie anywhere in the world, if you type your IP address in, you'll get your connection / computers.  You DON'T need this, unless you're running a server hosting files or something.  (Or you want to access your computer from around the world.)

Did I entirely miss the point?

You were saying that if you switched ISPs, you'd be SOL, because your forwarded ports wouldn't work... but your ISP only owns the DSL/Cable Modem, not your Router, which is used to configure your forwarded ports.  And, you'd make no sense anyways, because your Static DHCP Clients List is on your router, same as the static IP list that I was talking about.  So,   Explaination?

[karajorma]

  karajorma doesn't get it!  Woot!  I get to teach him something.  Makes me feel a little less stupid... err... I think!     One can always dream...

Keep dreaming. You've missed my point completely.

When most people get a router they leave DHCP turned on and use a dynamic IP address on their machines. When you turn on your machine it will then say "I don't have an IP address" and look for a DHCP server. Your router will respond by saying it's a DHCP server and will send and IP address. Once your machine has that it will then realise it doesn't have a DNS server either (since most people leave that on dynamic too). At this point your router responds by sending the IP Address of your ISPs DNS server (Information it obtained when it did it's own DHCP cycle when you turned it on and plugged it into your cable modem).

Now when you follow the Port Forward guide you lay yourself a little trap which could very easily bite you on the arse later. You tell Windows "Don't bother with DHCP. This is your IP address and here are the DNS servers you should use." That will work fine until you change your ISP. Your machine will then turn itself on and all will work well as long as you stay in your LAN. When something tries to connect using DNS, then you're screwed.

Because you turned off DHCP you still have the DNS servers of your old ISP entered. And cause you're not very knowledgeable about networking, you've probably forgotten by then that you did that. So your computer will try to connect to your old ISPs DNS server and will most likely be told to **** off since you're not paying to use them any more. At which point any program that doesn't use hard coded or stored IP Addresses rather than resolving them through DNS will fail. If you changed ISPs with your PC turned on you'll get very strange results. Some websites will work while others will fail. When you reset the machine the problem will get worse as your DNS cache will be flushed and now every website stops working. If you actually did something else before the reset you'll probably spend ages trying to put it back the way it was. I've heard of people going round and round for hours trying to solve this particular problem.


What you should have done of course is tell your router to send you the same IP address and transmit the DNS servers every time. That's called a reservation.

[jr2]

Darnit!  Back to stupid again!    I had forgotten about DNS.

Ok, well, perhaps I'll put a suggestion into PortForward.com.  Oh, BTW, have you checked your PMs?

[Vasudan Commander]

Darnit!  Back to stupid again!    I had forgotten about DNS.

Ok, well, perhaps I'll put a suggestion into PortForward.com.  Oh, BTW, have you checked your PMs?

Dont worry. Karajoma is the board admin. Board admins are all wise, all knowing, and all powerful.

Then again,  as the great Lord Acton said ,

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely." 

[karajorma]

Actually I'm not an admin, merely a supermod.

[Turey]

I don't know of any multiplayer game that requires you to forward ports if you are not hosting, regardless of whether you're joining a standalone or player-hosted game. Does FS2 make you do this at the moment?

Yes, it does. And even then it's a crap shoot as to whether or not it will work - it's something I've been *****ing about for a long time.

Nope. I've done extensive testing on this, on many different connections, and I've never had to forward ports to join a game. Only to host.

[Vasudan Commander]

Actually I'm not an admin, merely a supermod.

Eh. Same thing, different spelling.

[Hades]

Yes uhh bye*warps *
But really it is the same thing except you do not have the same privileges.And your not as Powerful as Goober5000.(Oh yea Some one has a plot to defeat him).

[Unknown Target]

I don't know of any multiplayer game that requires you to forward ports if you are not hosting, regardless of whether you're joining a standalone or player-hosted game. Does FS2 make you do this at the moment?

Yes, it does. And even then it's a crap shoot as to whether or not it will work - it's something I've been *****ing about for a long time.

Nope. I've done extensive testing on this, on many different connections, and I've never had to forward ports to join a game. Only to host.

Then why is one of the first things we told anyone on BTRLs release that they'd have to forward their ports?

[Turey]

Then why is one of the first things we told anyone on BTRLs release that they'd have to forward their ports?

Because if we get them to do it all up front, then no one comes up three months later after trying to host for the first time and complaining that it doesn't work.

[Agent_Koopa]

Keep dreaming. You've missed my point completely.

When most people get a router they leave DHCP turned on and use a dynamic IP address on their machines. When you turn on your machine it will then say "I don't have an IP address" and look for a DHCP server. Your router will respond by saying it's a DHCP server and will send and IP address. Once your machine has that it will then realise it doesn't have a DNS server either (since most people leave that on dynamic too). At this point your router responds by sending the IP Address of your ISPs DNS server (Information it obtained when it did it's own DHCP cycle when you turned it on and plugged it into your cable modem).

Now when you follow the Port Forward guide you lay yourself a little trap which could very easily bite you on the arse later. You tell Windows "Don't bother with DHCP. This is your IP address and here are the DNS servers you should use." That will work fine until you change your ISP. Your machine will then turn itself on and all will work well as long as you stay in your LAN. When something tries to connect using DNS, then you're screwed.

Because you turned off DHCP you still have the DNS servers of your old ISP entered. And cause you're not very knowledgeable about networking, you've probably forgotten by then that you did that. So your computer will try to connect to your old ISPs DNS server and will most likely be told to **** off since you're not paying to use them any more. At which point any program that doesn't use hard coded or stored IP Addresses rather than resolving them through DNS will fail. If you changed ISPs with your PC turned on you'll get very strange results. Some websites will work while others will fail. When you reset the machine the problem will get worse as your DNS cache will be flushed and now every website stops working. If you actually did something else before the reset you'll probably spend ages trying to put it back the way it was. I've heard of people going round and round for hours trying to solve this particular problem.


What you should have done of course is tell your router to send you the same IP address and transmit the DNS servers every time. That's called a reservation.

Why can't you just open your connection settings and erase the fixed DNS?