Firewalls and gaming

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eye_suc

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Hi all

Noob question time:
We are running a Smoothwall firewall and we now wish to start online gaming (or pretty soon at least). Problem is, i cant seem to connect anywhere. I suppose this has something to do with port forwarding or somesuch thing.

How do you go about setting up your Smoothwall to allow online gaming?
 
I use ZoneAlarm but for ANY online game i disable it since it causes issues with the game even if you configure it with the right ports and also increases your ping/latency within the game.
 
if only it was that easy :(

We cannot disable the firewall (Smoothwall) since it has to be on to protect the rest of the network. The ADSL line is also used for business purposes on occasion.

Anybody with smoothwall expertise or hints about how to bypass this?
 
you wont get any problems if the right ports are open and you have rules that allow incoming and outgoing traffic
 
Haven't got experience with smooth wall, but ordinarilly opening the ports on the firewall and enabling port forwarding for the ports the game requires should do the trick. I don't think the FW effects pings that adversely.
 
FireFLi said:
Haven't got experience with smooth wall, but ordinarilly opening the ports on the firewall and enabling port forwarding for the ports the game requires should do the trick. I don't think the FW effects pings that adversely.
Click to expand...
it doesnt affect them at all, it might cause your PC not to reply to some pings but the data still hits your connection at the same speed because a firewall receives everything.

that reminds me, if a game needs say port 2020 sometimes its talking about UDP obviously not TCP and other times other protocols
 
nah, i also figured it shouldnt affect the pings too bad, if at all.

If the right ports are opened and port forwarding has been enabled, will i be able to ping the servers directly from my pc? Or will i still not be able to see them directly?

I think our setup goes like this: ADSL line connected to ADSL Router -- ADSL Router connected to Smoothwall box -- smoothwall box on switch with three other pc's -- switch also connected to OTHER switch -- OTHER switch connected to "some kind of router with no cables" - "some kind of router with no cables" connected to MY "some kind of router with no cables" (hehe) -- and MY funny router connected to switch...

I suspect the problem comes in where my router do not see beyond the ADSL router. If this can be fixed by simply opening ports and forwarding them i will kiss a bergie! Or give him a pie.
 
You may need to configure multiple sets of port forwarding, namely for some of the routers as well.

I would suggest selecting games that do not need open ports. That way you might actually play something this year. :)
 
Bergie: Affectionate name referring to bums or homeless people, mostly used in Western Cape or Cape Town areas.

I hope its not the routers blocking the ports, we didnt set anything up to block ports on the routers. Although, we are still learning the ropes with OpenWRT. I will first investigate opening the ports and forwarding them. If that fails i will investigate the possibility that the routers block us.

PS: Anybody have an Unreal Tournament 2004 key that they do not wish to use anymore? I dont want to buy it right now since the new one is coming out next year.
 
Is the PPPOE connection created from your ADSL router? Then there is a very good chance your ADSL router is running some form of NAT, so you will need to set up port forwarding in the ADSL router as well, to forward ports to the firewall. Then the firewall must in turn forward them to your PC if it can see your PC directly, if not then same thing again until the chain reaches your PC. Yuk. And each time you change to another game you will want to close down the old ports and only then open new ones, otherwise your firewall will end up looking like a swiss cheese.
 
I can see the firewall pc directly luckily. But that sounds like an awesome ammount of effort. Geez, maybe i should just get a seperate ADSL line just for gaming :( even though the current one is idle most of the time.
 
The question is actually: Can the firewall see your PC directly, i.e. can it ping your PC, since it can only forward to machines it can see. However, except if you have other internal NAT routers or a DMZ setup, it probably can, so you should be OK in that area.
 
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