Utorrent - Static Ip - Linksys & True

[CosmicSurfer]

I have True Internet with a Linksys AG241 Router....

I've finally gotten around to trying uTorrent, but it says that I need to set up Port Forwarding, and I need "Static IP" to do this.

Seems that I don't have Static IP and I'm leery of messing with something that works.

I tried downloading a sample Torrent to see what would happen, and i'm receiving stuff.. but pretty slowly.. 25% of 350MB.. took all night.

So I guess I'm "Leaching" and not acting as a peer and this is slowing down the download...

Will Static IP effect my regular Internet experience?

Is it difficult to get Static IP from True?

Thanks,

CS

[Rice_King]

I've finally gotten around to trying uTorrent, but it says that I need to set up Port Forwarding, and I need "Static IP" to do this.

Is it difficult to get Static IP from True?

They're talking about an INTERNAL static IP and you're thinking of an EXTERNAL static IP. Assuming you're using XP, follow these steps Assign Static IP Address (Windows XP) and you should be ok.

<-EDIT->

While you're in there, may I suggest you set your DNS to use these IP addresses. 208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220, Reference: Open DNS.

Edited May 25, 2008 by Rice_King

[yeti]

Instructions to forward ports and setup an internal static IP for utorrent with the Linksys AG241

[Veazer]

Unless he's on a desktop system that will aways be using the same network, setting his system up like link you provided suggests could cause problems. What if he's using a laptop and often uses cafes and other wireless networks? The next time he goes into a cafe that uses a different subnet he'll be out of luck. Or he could be on the same subnet but another pc has already been assigned that address.

If the router supports it, it's much better to do a 'static lease' or 'dhcp reservation' in the router itself. It's just a way of telling the router "If a computer with MAC address XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX is connecting to the network, then always assign it the IP address x.x.x.x"

It's briefly covered on this page here about half way down the page.

Unfortunately, i just took a brief look at your router's user guide and it look's like it doesn't support dhcp reservations... You might be stuck with Rice King's suggestion unless they've added the feature in a later firmware. But if it's just a desktop system, it won't ever be a problem anyway.

[EDIT: typo]

Edited May 25, 2008 by Veazer

[Rice_King]

If the router supports it, it's much better to do a 'static lease' or 'dhcp reservation' in the router itself. It's just a way of telling the router "If a computer with MAC address XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX is connecting to the network, then always assign it the IP address x.x.x.x"

It's briefly covered on this page here about half way down the page.

Unfortunately, i just took a brief look at your router's user guide and it look's like it doesn't support dhcp reservations...

Please enlighten me us on how you would successfully implement port forwarding WITHOUT assigning a static IP address to the computer's network interface Veazer. Also, if what you say is true regarding the Linksys AG241 Router not supporting DHCP, I would be very surprised.

[stumonster]

Rice King

what Veaser was saying was that if he ( the OP ) uses DHCP and the router allows him to assign a lease time to the assigned IP he can set it as 30 , 60 days or never expire and then he can map the forwarded port to that IP which his laptop is assigned and still leave his network setting on auto so he does not have to reconfigure every time he is out some where else and connecting to another access point.

there should be a setting for the DHCP server lease time , I have not come across a router without it.

[Veazer]

If the router supports it, it's much better to do a 'static lease' or 'dhcp reservation' in the router itself. It's just a way of telling the router "If a computer with MAC address XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX is connecting to the network, then always assign it the IP address x.x.x.x"

It's briefly covered on this page here about half way down the page.

Unfortunately, i just took a brief look at your router's user guide and it look's like it doesn't support dhcp reservations...

Please enlighten me us on how you would successfully implement port forwarding WITHOUT assigning a static IP address to the computer's network interface Veazer. Also, if what you say is true regarding the Linksys AG241 Router not supporting DHCP, I would be very surprised.

If you read my post carefully, you'll see that I never suggested that he should try to implement port forwarding without assigning a static IP, I suggested that the static IP assignment should be done in the router and not in windows. Nor did I ever say his router doesn't support dhcp, i said it appears to not support dhcp reservations/static leases.

Like i already said, it's just a way of telling the router "If a computer with MAC address XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX is connecting to the network, then always assign it the IP address x.x.x.x"

Here's an example from the DD-WRT firmware:

It's just a simple matter of entering your MAC address and the IP address you want. Everytime you connect to the network you'll always get the same IP, and you won't mess up your TCP/IP settings for other networks. It's not even an issue of lease time, it will be a permanent assignment.

[Rice_King]

If you read my post carefully, you'll see that I never suggested that he should try to implement port forwarding without assigning a static IP, I suggested that the static IP assignment should be done in the router and not in windows. Nor did I ever say his router doesn't support dhcp, i said it appears to not support dhcp reservations/static leases.

Like i already said, it's just a way of telling the router "If a computer with MAC address XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX is connecting to the network, then always assign it the IP address x.x.x.x"

Here's an example from the DD-WRT firmware:

It's just a simple matter of entering your MAC address and the IP address you want. Everytime you connect to the network you'll always get the same IP, and you won't mess up your TCP/IP settings for other networks. It's not even an issue of lease time, it will be a permanent assignment.

Thank you. That was enlightening. And I should have read your post more carefully. (I catch myself eating "Humble Pie" on my 500th post.)

Edited May 25, 2008 by Rice_King

[monty]

Unfortunately not that many routers (especially the cheaper ones) support this very handy function

One very very handy small application I came by, is called netsetman.

Freeware, to be found here: http://www.netsetman.com/index.php?s=nsm

Download and install on any laptop you do a lot of traveling with.

You can pre-set up to 6 different networks and label them accordingly.

For example make a setting "home" with the fixed IP settings making your torrent application happy.

Another setting called "office" with also maybe a fixed IP and even a different workgroup name if you so need it!

A third setting called "public" where you set it to DHCP, making your laptop usable on public hotspots or internet cafe's!

No more fiddling with IP settings when moving around!

The Pro verion (12 Euro, around 600 Baht) has one very handy extra, namely you can set seperate proxy servers for the different locations. I found many companies need their employees to go to their proxy servers to get access, and then when they get home, IE of Firefox won't work anymore since the programs can't finde the company proxies ... Actually found out from several visitors at my place wanting to use my wifi and unable to do so because of company proxy settings...

[Veazer]

Thank you. That was enlightening. And I should have read your post more carefully. (I catch myself eating "Humble Pie" on my 500th post.)

No worries at all mate, & thanks for a courteous response.

Unfortunately not that many routers (especially the cheaper ones) support this very handy function

One very very handy small application I came by, is called netsetman.

Freeware, to be found here: http://www.netsetman.com/index.php?s=nsm

Download and install on any laptop you do a lot of traveling with.

You can pre-set up to 6 different networks and label them accordingly.

For example make a setting "home" with the fixed IP settings making your torrent application happy.

Another setting called "office" with also maybe a fixed IP and even a different workgroup name if you so need it!

A third setting called "public" where you set it to DHCP, making your laptop usable on public hotspots or internet cafe's!

No more fiddling with IP settings when moving around!

I've seen the static mapping on a lot of cheapo d-link routers so i assumed so other brands were doing the same, looks like it's not the case though... Bummer, it's a very handy feature.

That's a great looking app, thanks for sharing it. I saw a similar app (NetSet) before but it wasn't free.

[nikster]

Ok I know very well how to enable port forwarding and get a static IP to my laptop.

However, it's absolutely not necessary with the latest uTorrent / Azureus clients. I don't know how they do it, but they most certainly work around any networking obstacles and I get a green smiley after a while in Azureus with any download. And all that without having set up either port forwarding or a fixed IP.

So here's my advice: Leave it at the default settings. It just works.

I also recommend Azureus over uTorrent. uTorrent is a bit nicer but I found Azureus to be way more stable - it continues after network interruptions, it never crashes, it's a big, mean downloading machine.

I tried uTorrent for a few weeks but it would sometimes not reconnect after disconnects, and a few times it crashed in the middle of the night. Just my experience. YMMV.

(edited for terrible spelling)

Edited May 25, 2008 by nikster

[nikster]

One very very handy small application I came by, is called netsetman.

Freeware, to be found here: http://www.netsetman.com/index.php?s=nsm

Download and install on any laptop you do a lot of traveling with.

You can pre-set up to 6 different networks and label them accordingly.

For example make a setting "home" with the fixed IP settings making your torrent application happy.

Another setting called "office" with also maybe a fixed IP and even a different workgroup name if you so need it!

A third setting called "public" where you set it to DHCP, making your laptop usable on public hotspots or internet cafe's!

No more fiddling with IP settings when moving around!

Great tip, thanks! I will put this on my XP machine.

On the Mac, this functionality is built-in, it's called Location and is in the network settings panel. Of course, I merely mention this in case Mac users are reading this and don't know about it

[guava]

Definitely no need for a static IP (external). I have no port forwarding set up on my router.

If you are already downloading the file, albeit slowly, it's entirely possible you have to change nothing. Did uTorrent tell you that you had to set up a forward?

Some torrents download much slower than others, especially torrents with few seeders, and seeders/leechers located only in US etc. I have True ADSL and I can get sustained speeds of up to 260kB (ie the extent of my bandwidth) on those occassions when the torrent is popular and True's backbones are up and functional. It helps if there's at least a few seeders who are "local". Speeds of less than 20kB per torrent far more typical though.

I'd do a test with a popular album, recent tv episode or something that has 500+ seeders, before I even attempted to look for solutions to a problem that may not even exist.

[stumonster]

However, it's absolutely not necessary with the latest uTorrent / Azureus clients. I don't know how they do it,

Upnp

you need to have it enabled on the router and your computer though - but security concerns cause many to turn it off.

[Veazer]

EDIT: looks like a few people beat me to the punch before i could post this...

Ok I know very well how to enable port forwarding and get a static IP to my laptop.

However, it's absolutely not necessary with the latest uTorrent / Azureus clients. I don't know how they do it, but they most certainly work around any networking obstacles and I get a green smiley after a while in Azureus with any download. And all that without having set up either port forwarding or a fixed IP.

So here's my advice: Leave it at the default settings. It just works.

I also recommend Azureus over uTorrent. uTorrent is a bit nicer but I found Azureus to be way more stable - it continues after network interruptions, it never crashes, it's a big, mean downloading machine.

I tried uTorrent for a few weeks but it would sometimes not reconnect after disconnects, and a few times it crashed in the middle of the night. Just my experience. YMMV.

(edited for terrible spelling)

The auto configuration you mentioned is done using UPnP, but i think UPnP is such a security risk that i disable it (so does Steve Gibson of Gibson Research). It potentially allows apps and websites to silently open and forward ports directly to your pc. It makes configuration of torrent apps easy as pie, but think of the massive security risks.

From the uPnP wiki page:

Lack of Authentication

The UPnP protocol does not implement any authentication, so UPnP device implementations must implement their own authentication mechanisms, or implement the Device Security Service.[2] Unfortunately, many UPnP device implementations lack authentication mechanisms, and by default assume local systems and their users are completely trustworthy.[3][4] Most notably, Routers and firewalls running the UPnP IGD protocol are vulnerable to attack since the framers of the protocol omitted to add any standard authentication method.

For example, Adobe Flash programs are capable of generating HTTPU (HTTP over UDP) requests. This allows the router settings to be modified by a malicious web site when someone with a UPnP-enabled router simply visits that web site.[5] The following changes can be made silently by code embedded in an Adobe Flash object hosted on a malicious website[6]:

* Port forward internal services (ports) to the router external facing side (i.e. expose computers behind a firewall to the internet)

* Port forward the router's web administration interface to the external facing side

* Port forwarding to any external server located on the Internet, effectively allowing an attacker to attack an Internet host via the router, while hiding their IP address

* Change DNS server settings so that when victims believe they are visiting a particular site (such as an online bank), they are redirected to a malicious website instead.

* Change the DNS server settings so that when a victim updates Firefox extensions, they download malicious code instead.

* Change administrative credentials to the router/firewall

* Change PPP settings

* Change IP settings for all interfaces

* Change WiFi settings

* Terminate connections

This only applies to the "firewall-hole-punching"-feature of UPnP; it does not apply when the IGD does not support UPnP, or UPnP has been disabled on the IGD.[citation needed] Also, not all routers can have such things as DNS server settings altered by UPnP because much of the specification (including LAN Host Configuration) is optional for UPnP enabled routers[7].

[CosmicSurfer]

Additional FYI.... I'm using a Desktop... I'm tied to True until somebody wakes up and decides to provide REAL Broadband.

I'm still evaluating the options, but all of you are certainly giving me an education.

Thanks for the comments... Keep them coming.

CS

[Veazer]

EDIT: Ooops, replied to the wrong thread. Mods please delete this post.

Edited May 25, 2008 by Veazer