To 'static Ip' - Or Not ?

[CosmicSurfer]

I recently installed my first Torrent Client - uTorrent.

During the Install it said that I should setup a Static Ip.

Not understanding the effect of Static Ip on my overall Computer experience and Internet access, and leary of messing with something that was working pretty well now (considering I'm using TRUE in Bangkok) I didn't do it.

Now I find the even though uTorrent seem to be functioning well, the downloads are pretty slow, and I'd like to speed them up.. I rarely see download speeds greater than 10 kB/s. Never have I even seen it reach 20. Weeks to download a 5 or 6 GB file is pretty disconcerting.

My Questions.. Will a "static IP" really effect my downloading speed?

Will it interfer with other On-Line or computer usage and functions?

Is there an up-side, Benifit or "cost" ????

Thanks for any info,

CS

[jsat]

I recently installed my first Torrent Client - uTorrent.

During the Install it said that I should setup a Static Ip.

It is asking you to setup a static IP address on your LAN (local area network) as opposed to a dynamic IP allocated by DHCP. Not a static IP from your Internet Service Provider.

There are many advantages for this some mentioned here in the wiki - - LAN

[CosmicSurfer]

I recently installed my first Torrent Client - uTorrent.

During the Install it said that I should setup a Static Ip.

It is asking you to setup a static IP address on your LAN (local area network) as opposed to a dynamic IP allocated by DHCP. Not a static IP from your Internet Service Provider.

There are many advantages for this some mentioned here in the wiki - - LAN

But does it Speed the download up????.. and how does a LAN IP address effect Torrents....

Besides which.. I don't have a Lan set up at the moment !!!!

Still Confused !!!!

CS

[wolf5370]

The only reason for having an externel IP Static, is so that incoming connections can find your computer each time.

With DHCP, your IP Address is randomly set from a range each time you power up the machine (or tell it to reassign one/change IP Settings etc).

I have machines with static external IP Addresses as they are servers that are used via online services (i.e. external database machines etc).

It is simply the address (like a houe address) so that it can be found on the 'network' (I'm keeping this simple and not blinding you with boring details of subnets etc etc, so sorry if it seems derogatory). ISPs will give your PC a range of IP Addresses that it can use (these are your external IP Addresses) - they could also give you a fixed one. Their DNS Server (think DNS Server as the local post office) the ISP will redirect to your computer as it knows the actual machine to send to based on its register of IP Addresses that it has assigned.

As to speed, it will make no difference at all I would say (give or ake a nanosecond or two the DNS Server takes in looking up your machine I suppose).

Torent and Peer-2-Peer are often slow. This is because you are reliant on the other machine(s) having fast upload speeds and the servers/super nodes etc not being too busy.

I would guess they want you to have a static IP so they can access your shared folder directly for their indexing.

This is not all technically absolutely true, but it is close enough for you to hopefully understand.

Hope it help anyway.

Cheers,

Wolf

Edited June 5, 2008 by wolf5370

[nikster]

First, I think Azureus is better. It doesn't crash as much as uTorrent. Let me rephrase that - it never crashes. And it keeps downloading when the connection goes up and down like ..... err.. connections go up and down in Thailand...

uTorrent crashed a few times on me which is very disappointing when you are trying to download something overnight. I only found out it crashed the next morning and lost valuable download-time.

Second, I don't think you need to set up anything with either Azureus or uTorrent. I used to do this back in the early days, and back then it did speed up downloads. But now the software is advanced enough to use UPnP on your router to make it behave. I always get green smileys which means everything is perfect and couldn't be better in terms of connectivity. Without setting up a static address or port forwarding.

So I would just try it. Let it run, and if you get green, it's all good, no further steps necessary. Give it 10 minutes or so - it takes a while for things to get good.

As for torrent speed, look for torrents that have lots of seeders and few leechers. If you can't find one with a good seeder/leecher ratio, be patient. It will be slow in the beginning but faster towards the end.

One important speed tip: Set the upload rate so it's comfortably under your theoretical maximum. For example, if you have a 512Kbit uplink, set the upload rate to 35 or 40KB/s max. If you leave it unlimited, or set it too high, the outgoing data will starve your incoming connections. So this is perhaps the only thing that you absolutely have to set by hand.

On Azureus there is an option to let it set the upload rate automatically but I haven't had much success with that. It seemed to limit the upload too aggressively. And the less you upload, the slower your download, at least when the seeder/leecher ratio is bad.

Edited June 6, 2008 by nikster

[nikster]

But does it Speed the download up????.. and how does a LAN IP address effect Torrents....

Besides which.. I don't have a Lan set up at the moment !!!!

See my comment above. You don't need to do it.

If you don't have a LAN you most certainly don't need to do it

It only applies if you have a LAN, and a router, and multiple machines on the LAN.

[CosmicSurfer]

But does it Speed the download up????.. and how does a LAN IP address effect Torrents....

Besides which.. I don't have a Lan set up at the moment !!!!

See my comment above. You don't need to do it.

If you don't have a LAN you most certainly don't need to do it

It only applies if you have a LAN, and a router, and multiple machines on the LAN.

I do have a Router - LinkSys AG241.

And I used to have a network set-up with my Wife's Laptop.. But I haven't re installed it since I Upgraded (Reinstalled) my O/S to a legit version.

I guess I'll be reconfiguring the network with her laptop again soon.

So maybe I do need to do this after all ???

Will a Static IP have any other effect on my Net connections, like with LimeWire, Browsers, Emai, VoIP or Instant Messaging?

Just call me "Mr. Paranoid",

CS

[CosmicSurfer]

First, I think Azureus is better. It doesn't crash as much as uTorrent. Let me rephrase that - it never crashes. And it keeps downloading when the connection goes up and down like ..... err.. connections go up and down in Thailand...

uTorrent crashed a few times on me which is very disappointing when you are trying to download something overnight. I only found out it crashed the next morning and lost valuable download-time.

Second, I don't think you need to set up anything with either Azureus or uTorrent. I used to do this back in the early days, and back then it did speed up downloads. But now the software is advanced enough to use UPnP on your router to make it behave. I always get green smileys which means everything is perfect and couldn't be better in terms of connectivity. Without setting up a static address or port forwarding.

So I would just try it. Let it run, and if you get green, it's all good, no further steps necessary. Give it 10 minutes or so - it takes a while for things to get good.

As for torrent speed, look for torrents that have lots of seeders and few leechers. If you can't find one with a good seeder/leecher ratio, be patient. It will be slow in the beginning but faster towards the end.

One important speed tip: Set the upload rate so it's comfortably under your theoretical maximum. For example, if you have a 512Kbit uplink, set the upload rate to 35 or 40KB/s max. If you leave it unlimited, or set it too high, the outgoing data will starve your incoming connections. So this is perhaps the only thing that you absolutely have to set by hand.

On Azureus there is an option to let it set the upload rate automatically but I haven't had much success with that. It seemed to limit the upload too aggressively. And the less you upload, the slower your download, at least when the seeder/leecher ratio is bad.

I haven't had ANY crashes with uTorrent.... I did have some TrueVector crashes.. but those are related to Zone Alarm.. (I've been running an old 6.5 Version while they got the kinks out of v7.. so time to update now.)

I do get Green on the main Torrent I'm trying to download.. Hill Street Blues, S1 (a 5.23GB Download) but I keep going in & out on my Second Download for Sopranos S7,E1 (743MB).. I'm also seeding Sarah Conners Chronicles E1, hoping to help increase my D/L speed.

The Upload speed is set to the Default "7 kB/s" ... Download is set to "0" (Unlimited)

Thanks for trying to make things clear.

CS

[nikster]

Up your upload speed. What kind of connection are you on? You could probably do 25KB/s without affecting anything, or more. Bittorrent is a tit-for-tat protocol: The more you upload, the faster your download. It's pretty simple

[Rice_King]

Bittorrent is a tit-for-tat protocol: The more you upload, the faster your download. It's pretty simple

True. It is referred to as "share ratio" and you can read about it here CosmicSurfer.

[CosmicSurfer]

Up your upload speed. What kind of connection are you on? You could probably do 25KB/s without affecting anything, or more. Bittorrent is a tit-for-tat protocol: The more you upload, the faster your download. It's pretty simple

Since you asked in a previous post I just double-checked... Im at 256-/128.. For Reasons "Why" you can see my other Thread (just started) "Is TRUE - True????"

I'll try uping the upload to 25.

Thanks,

CS

[pattayaheaven]

I always have the speed guide on u torrent saying the port is not open yet i can get 180 kbps on download.Not too certain about port forwarding and will it increase my speed or not.

[CobraSnakeNecktie]

I recently installed my first Torrent Client - uTorrent.

During the Install it said that I should setup a Static Ip.

Not understanding the effect of Static Ip on my overall Computer experience and Internet access, and leary of messing with something that was working pretty well now (considering I'm using TRUE in Bangkok) I didn't do it.

Now I find the even though uTorrent seem to be functioning well, the downloads are pretty slow, and I'd like to speed them up.. I rarely see download speeds greater than 10 kB/s. Never have I even seen it reach 20. Weeks to download a 5 or 6 GB file is pretty disconcerting.

My Questions.. Will a "static IP" really effect my downloading speed?

Will it interfer with other On-Line or computer usage and functions?

Is there an up-side, Benifit or "cost" ????

Thanks for any info,

CS

Does anybody know if using an Internal Static IP makes a difference for Azereus etc?

I use a Billion router Bipac 5100 and TTT Maxnet DSL. In the Azereus guide it says its important to setup an Internal static address.

The hitch is that my router is 192.168.1.254... But .255 is the loopback address and can't use it..

What have others done to get around this? Is it better to try to change the 192.x.x.x (legal illegal - non routing) internal address on the router? Not sure if that would work right for the ISP. or setup a manual DHCP static address of 10.x.x.x

Any tips or experiences?

[youngkiwi]

Just setup an internal IP on the workstation you want to download torrents on. If your router internal IP is say 192.168.1.1, then set your workstation to 192.168.1.20 for example (but best to set it outside of the DHCP range especially if you have other computers on your network). Then forward the azureus ports on your router to your internal workstation IP address of 192.168.1.20, or if you have DMZ on your router, set that to this internal IP number. It is not recommended to use DMZ for security reasons, but if you are a beginner and don't know how to configure port forwarding, it is an easy setup option. By the way, the internal IP number you allocate to your router and machines on your network has nothing to do with the external IP number your ISP allocates you when you connect.

Edited July 13, 2008 by youngkiwi

[Rice_King]

Most, if not all, static IP / port forwarding questions can be answered at http://portforward.com/

[CobraSnakeNecktie]

Just setup an internal IP on the workstation you want to download torrents on. If your router internal IP is say 192.168.1.1, then set your workstation to 192.168.1.20 for example (but best to set it outside of the DHCP range especially if you have other computers on your network). Then forward the azureus ports on your router to your internal workstation IP address of 192.168.1.20, or if you have DMZ on your router, set that to this internal IP number. It is not recommended to use DMZ for security reasons, but if you are a beginner and don't know how to configure port forwarding, it is an easy setup option. By the way, the internal IP number you allocate to your router and machines on your network has nothing to do with the external IP number your ISP allocates you when you connect.

Thanks Kiwi ! Well still having trouble. When I run the NAT test in Azureus then

Testing port 61181 ...

NAT Error - Connection to 125.25.106.252:61181 (your computer) refused.

That IP is the external WAN IP.

So not sure where to head from here. I used the portforward.com directions for my router. Even though I changed address pool to a 192.168.1.1 address but still kicking out 10.0.0.1 range w/reboot. That may be the issue right there. Only one computer on my network.

I am getting decent download speed with just the Azureus port configured and router port forwarding. upwards of 700kb in my supposed 2K maxnet service. Seems to avg maybe 300k download.

Is the AZ test supposed to come back OK?

Edited July 13, 2008 by CobraSnakeNecktie

[Rice_King]

Is the AZ test supposed to come back OK?

Your P2P client should pass the test if you configured your router's port forwarding correctly. If you are running an internet firewall, (Zone Alarm, Comodo, Windows Firewall, etc..) be sure to configure it to allow your P2P client (uTorrent, Azureus) access to the port traffic.

Even though I changed address pool to a 192 address still kicking out 10.0.0.1 pool.

If you did NOT set your network card with a static IP then, from the command line, type (no quotes): "ipconfig /release" [ENTER] and then "ipconfig /renew" [ENTER] to refresh the network adapter with the latest IP address issued from your router.

Edited July 13, 2008 by Rice_King

[husskydog]

Just setup an internal IP on the workstation you want to download torrents on. If your router internal IP is say 192.168.1.1, then set your workstation to 192.168.1.20 for example (but best to set it outside of the DHCP range especially if you have other computers on your network). Then forward the azureus ports on your router to your internal workstation IP address of 192.168.1.20, or if you have DMZ on your router, set that to this internal IP number. It is not recommended to use DMZ for security reasons, but if you are a beginner and don't know how to configure port forwarding, it is an easy setup option. By the way, the internal IP number you allocate to your router and machines on your network has nothing to do with the external IP number your ISP allocates you when you connect.

Thanks Kiwi ! Well still having trouble. When I run the NAT test in Azureus then

Testing port 61181 ...

NAT Error - Connection to 125.25.106.252:61181 (your computer) refused.

That IP is the external WAN IP.

So not sure where to head from here. I used the portforward.com directions for my router. Even though I changed address pool to a 192.168.1.1 address but still kicking out 10.0.0.1 range w/reboot. That may be the issue right there. Only one computer on my network.

I am getting decent download speed with just the Azureus port configured and router port forwarding. upwards of 700kb in my supposed 2K maxnet service. Seems to avg maybe 300k download.

Is the AZ test supposed to come back OK?

Having used Utorrent for years, i find if you are using windows xp PRO sp2 it`s better for my traffic if i open up more (half open ports) using the patching program from LvLLord.de. As microsoft limits half open ports to 10 on xp Pro sp2 http://www.lvllord.de/?lang=en&url=downloads..cheers

[PattayaDavid]

I had setup both my Router and PC LAN Connection for OpenDNS several days ago, but didn't really notice any improvement in my browser service or torrent downloads. Yesterday, for the first time ever, I setup my PC LAN with a static IP then setup Port Forwarding in my Router. So far, I really haven't noticed any increase in speed or reliability, but will continue to monitor over the next few weeks.

Pattayadavid

[spacebass]

Just setup an internal IP on the workstation you want to download torrents on. If your router internal IP is say 192.168.1.1, then set your workstation to 192.168.1.20 for example (but best to set it outside of the DHCP range especially if you have other computers on your network). Then forward the azureus ports on your router to your internal workstation IP address of 192.168.1.20, or if you have DMZ on your router, set that to this internal IP number. It is not recommended to use DMZ for security reasons, but if you are a beginner and don't know how to configure port forwarding, it is an easy setup option. By the way, the internal IP number you allocate to your router and machines on your network has nothing to do with the external IP number your ISP allocates you when you connect.

I used DMZ (because it was easy) before i sussed out port forwarding that is not very hard, www.portforward.com, I have never had so many viruses so fast and I would not recommend anyone especially a novice using the DMZ zone thing. It is asking for trouble.

Edited July 19, 2008 by spacebass

[Prasert]

How bittorrent works:

the moment you add a torrent file to your client (eg. uTorrent or Azureus), the client reads the torrent file and then contacts the tracker, which is a little piece of server software running somewhere on the internet.

Now these things happen:

1. Your client informs the tracker on which port it is running (because your connection comes from that port) and informs the tracker on which IP address you are (because your connection comes from that address). The tracker remembers this.

2. Your client asks the tracker for peers and receives a list of IP addresses with portnumbers.

3. Your client tries to connect to these peers and starts downloading and uploading.

To achieve all this, no portmappings or static IP addresses are required!

If you have a router and a private IP address on your computer:

When you look in your peer list, you will see that all connections are initiated from your computer (e.g. there's an L behind each peer in Azureus).

As long as you don't setup port-forwarding in your router, other clients on the internet are unable to connect to your client. This works both ways: your computer will also be unable to connect to computers behind a router where no port-forwarding is setup.

The moment that everything is setup correctly, other clients will be able to connect. This means more connections and thus faster downloads (and uploads!).

Your client updates the tracker on a regular interval, telling the tracker which pieces of the torrent it has already received (and how much data has been transfered). This information is then sent to other clients by the tracker.

IP addresses, port-forwarding..... quite some difficult stuff for quite some people. So manufacturers of routers built uPnP into their routers. With uPnP enabled, the client software can send a signal to the router to forward that port. It's easy, no knowledge required.

(and uPnP causes other risks, but that's another topic)