Port Forwarding Tutorial for bit torrents with Windows OS’s.
Things you’ll need to do:
1. Create a client reservation in the router
2. Tell your router what port your using so it’ll allow traffic in/out
3. Create a rule in your firewall to allow traffic on said port.
Things/Info you’ll need:
1. Port number your torrent program is using
2. The IP address your router gave to your pc.
3. Procedure for accessing your router configuration utility.
4. Find out what type of software firewall the system uses.
Gathering Information:
From utorrent
First fire up utorrent, go to the menu at the top and click Options. Then Preferences. On the left side of the box that comes up click Connection. On the upper right-hand side there will be a number for Listening port. Write that number down on a piece of paper.
Mine is 54356.
Close utorrent.
If you use some other bit-torrent program you’ll have to poke around a little to find the port number. It shouldn’t be too difficult.
Windows/IP Address
Next click Windows Start button. Navigate to the Run command. Click that. Type cmd in the text box. Click okay or hit the Enter key.
In the little black box thingy that comes up (called command prompt) type this:
Ipconfig /all Then hit the Enter key. Make sure to leave a space between the g and the /
You will see the IP address that your router has given that computer. It should be something like 192.168.1.100 or the last number in the series will be 101,102 etc.
Write that number down on the same piece of paper with the utorrent port number. The other bit of info you need is under the heading of Physical Address (also called the MAC address). Write down the series of numbers next to the Physical address heading. It should be something like 00-01-03-BB-6E-AF.
!!Make sure you leave
this pc on until we get all done with the changes!!
Close the command prompt box.
Firewall:
Since Windows XP Microsloth has included a software firewall that is enabled by default. It actually works as well as any others, and seems easier to configure than Norton,Zone Alarm,McAfee et al. But you need to find out what your system is using and make sure that it is only using one software firewall! If you find that somehow Norton and the Windows firewalls are running, turn one off. You’ll have to poke around a little bit in Norton or Zone Alarm to figure out how to turn off the firewall feature. Or you can go to Control Panel>Windows Firewall and simply click the radio button to turn off the Windows firewall. I’d recommend using the Windows firewall and turning off whatever else may be available and/or running.
Router Configuration
Utility
Usually this is done by starting your browser, Internet Explorer/Firefox etc. Click in the address box at the top and typing: http://192.168.1.1 and then hit the Enter key. A little dialog box will pop up and ask you for a user name and password to access the router configuration program. For Linksys routers leave the user name blank and type admin into the password box. Hit Enter. That should take you in. If at some point you changed the user name and password to your router (and you should!) you will need that information. If you can’t find it or don’t remember it, then you’ll have to take a pen or paper clip and press the little recessed reset button on the back of the router and hold it in for 5-10 seconds.
The info above is for Linksys routers, if you have some other brand you’ll need to pull the documentation for it, go download the manual for your make/model or go here for help with how to access your router. http://www.portforward.com/
Summary:
So now we are armed with all the information we need to make the necessary tweaks to get things operating smoothly.
To recap: You have,
1. utorrent port number
2. IP address the router gave your pc
3. The physical address or MAC address of the network adapter.
4. Stuff you need to access the router configuration utility.
5. Know which software firewall is being used and how to access it to make changes
Taking Action: (Yay!)
1. Firewall first. I’ll assume you took my advice and are going to use the Windows firewall. Go to Control Panel. Double click Windows Firewall. At the top of that dialog box you’ll see some tabs. Click the Exceptions tab. Look on the list and see if there is an entry for utorrent (or your bt client of choice). When utorrent installs it asks you if you want to let it create an exception/rule in the Windows firewall. If you clicked yes at install utorrent should be on the list. If utorrent is on the list make sure there is a black check mark next to the utorrent entry.
If it’s not on the list do this:
Click Add Program. Scroll the list until you find utorrent, click on the utorrent entry, then click OK.
If for some reason utorrent is not on the list of available programs you’ll have to click the Browse button and browse to c:\program files\utorrent\utorrent.exe and double click that.
So now you have allowed utorrent access in and out of the firewall. You shouldn’t have to do anything else, but just to be double sure, do the following.
Click the
In the Port Number field type the number you wrote down earlier. 54656 for example.
Leave the radio button with TCP checked. Click OK.
Now do the same procedure again, click add port > type utorrent-udp in the name field, type the same port number as before, and then check the UDP radio button. Click OK.
Now make sure your new rules/exceptions have black check marks next to them so they are enabled.
Click OK until you are back at Control Panel. Close Control Panel.
So you have now just told the first Sentry in your gated community (home network)
That bit torrent is cool and all traffic in/out should be allowed to pass unobstructed.
Now we need to tell the second Sentry, your router, to do the same.
Configure Your Router
Two things need to be done. The order doesn’t really matter, but we need to create what’s called a Client Reservation or dhcp reservation and also open/forward the correct port so the bt client can do it’s thing properly.
Open/Forward the port
Briefly repeating the procedure to access a Linksys router.
Open browser, click in address box at the top. Type http://192.168.1.1 , hit Enter key.
In the dialog box that comes up type in your username and password. If you never changed this then it’s blank username and admin as the password. Hit Enter key.
You should now be in the router config utility and be on the Setup page. Every router is a little different, so you may have to look around a little for the port forwarding section or with Linksys you want to be on the Applications and Gaming Tab.Click the link at the top of the screen that says Applications and Gaming. On the left side you’ll see a series of text boxes. In any open field type torrent. Directly to the right of that you’ll see a place to type in the external port number. Type the number you wrote down earlier. Like 54566. Type the same number in the next box over for Internal port number. Under the Protocol column leave it set at both. This means it’s allowed to use both TCP and UDP. Don’t worry about what that means, just leave it at both. J Then in the To IP address type in the number you grabbed earlier from the command prompt ipconfig /all thingy you did. It very likely will be 100,101,102,103 etc. All you really need is the last number. The rest is filled in for you already. So type in 101 or whatever you wrote down.
Check the box to the right to enable the things you just filled in.
Then click Save Settings at the bottom of the screen.
Phew, almost done. Although that wasn’t so bad was it? ;-)
Client Reservation
Sounds intimidating or confusing, but it’s just a way to ensure your router gives the same IP address to the same computer every time it boots. Because you just created a rule to forward port 54566 to computer 192.168.1.101, you want to make sure that pc gets the .101 address every time. If it gets 103 for example, the port forward rule won’t work correctly. This happens a lot if you have more than one pc accessing the router, and almost everyone does these days.
For the Linksys routers it’s very easy.
Click the Setup link at the top of the page.
Under Basic Setup, about half way down the page and to the right a little, there is a button to click that says “dhcp reservation”. Click that.
In the dialog box that comes up, at the top you’ll see a list of pc’s that are connected to the router at that moment. Make sure your main bit torrent machine is turned on! I know you were listening earlier when I told you not to turn that machine off until we were done. Right?
So you should see client name, mine’s john, the type of interace, wired or wireless, an IP address 192.168.1.101 and a MAC address. Cross check your IP addy (.101 for example) with the Physical addy you wrote down earlier. 00:01:03:BB:6E:AF. They should sync up, which then means you should click the check box under the “Select” column for that computer. Then click Add Clients button just below the info grid.
Click save settings at the bottom of the page.
Close browser, or go to Losslesslegs and fire up a torrent and see if it seems to be working better.
That’s it, you’re done, Congrats.
Feel free to pm goother with any questions, comments, corrections or additions. Hopefully this can be a group effort to help everyone torrent more efficiently.
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