Port settings, traffic shaping

luckat

Over on the Broadband thread, they're talking about traffic shaping, and say that to avoid this one should change the port to 80 and encrypt torrents. How's this done, taking in AirPort, Transmission and OS X settings?

ZENER

I have Transmission installed here and in it's preferences/network I changed the port to 80 and it seems to be working ok. I can't see any option to encrypt though - version 0.80 (2641).

Maybe Azeurus might offer that option ?

What ISP are you with ? I know clearwire liked to do this - so I applied payment shaping to them !:D

ZEN

luckat

Irish Broadband. Payment shaping sounds like a good idea.

By the way, when you said you changed Transmission's port, did you then enter the same port in your Network settings and (if applicable) your AirPort's settings?

ZENER

To the best of my knowledge a good friend of mine is on IBB on the North Strand Road near the 5 Lamps and they don't apply port shaping there. He regularly downloads torrents and files via Limewire without issues and we have regular conversations with video over Skype. He also has Blueface TAs connected too. When I had Clearwire none of this stuff functioned once they employed Port Shaping.

Are you having problems downloading torrents ? It may just be the settings in your router - you might need to open an inbound port for Transmission or turn on uPNP.

All I did was change the default port in Transmissions Network settings from 9090 to 80 - nothing else. By default I don't use the Macs firewall because I use Smoothwall 3 and a proxy/firewall setup. There's no need to change anything in the network panel - at least I didn't and to the best of my knowledge with the firewall turned off all ports are accessible on the network connection be it Airport or Ethernet or Firewire.

ZEN

luckat

And what speed are you getting on Transmission, Zener?

luckat

And qu'est que c'est ce uPNP?

ZENER

I can get up to 300KBps on my 3Mbps line. uPNP is a way for applications and hardware to configure network requirements automatically on uPNP enabled hardware. The downside of it is that the software could just as easily be malware or spyware opening up the services they need to propagate.

Are you having difficulties with torrents on a Mac ? If so, post your setup and we'll see if we can help you out.

ZEN

luckat

Highest I've got is 13 or 14 kbps.

When you say setup? Transmission, OS X, firewall and Transmission and Airport Utility all set to the same port. uPNB I don't know.

NullZer0

Don't bother - I assume your using NTL.
Its pretty obvious to them whats going on even encrypted.

Solution:
Use Transmission
Go to www.relakks.com and take the 5 day free trail (after that you WILL want to pay the 5euro per month for it.


Works perfect for me.....

luckat

You assume wrong, iRock, as you'll see if you read the thread.

NullZer0

luckat wrote:

You assume wrong, iRock, as you'll see if you read the thread.

Thankyou for taking the time to correct me, it is greatly appreciated.


----

I assumed wrong.
However, this method will work with IBB also - its basically just a VPN.
I regularly get 300-400KBps +

ZENER

luckat wrote:

When you say setup? Transmission, OS X, firewall and Transmission and Airport Utility all set to the same port. uPNB I don't know.

Sorry, I meant :

Broadband Provider.
Modem/Router Model.
Torrent applications and settings.
Any other relevant info.

Just to update you. I was in my friends place yesterday and he says he noticed a slowdown in torrents over the last couple of weeks so it looks like traffic shaping has been implemented by IBB. Did you try changing the port number to 80 in Transmission ? Did that have any effect ?

ZEN

ZENER

iRock wrote:

Don't bother - I assume your using NTL.
Its pretty obvious to them whats going on even encrypted.

Solution:
Use Transmission
Go to www.relakks.com and take the 5 day free trail (after that you WILL want to pay the 5euro per month for it.


Works perfect for me.....

Looks like a useful service iRock. Thanks.

ZEN

luckat

ZENER wrote:

Sorry, I meant :

Broadband Provider.

IBB

Modem/Router Model.

IBB's wireless POE box, plus an AirPort Express

Torrent applications and settings.

Transmission; what settings do you mean?

Any other relevant info.

Just to update you. I was in my friends place yesterday and he says he noticed a slowdown in torrents over the last couple of weeks so it looks like traffic shaping has been implemented by IBB. Did you try changing the port number to 80 in Transmission ? Did that have any effect?

Yes, no.

NullZer0

ZENER wrote:

Sorry, I meant :

Broadband Provider.
Modem/Router Model.
Torrent applications and settings.
Any other relevant info.

Just to update you. I was in my friends place yesterday and he says he noticed a slowdown in torrents over the last couple of weeks so it looks like traffic shaping has been implemented by IBB. Did you try changing the port number to 80 in Transmission ? Did that have any effect ?

ZEN

No worries.

You could also tunnel the connection over SSH but the service I mentioned will work fine.

Of course Transmission and Az will map the UPNP automatically but its not going to make any difference if they are limiting you anyway.

luckat

If they're limiting me I'm going to change provider, as soon as some provider sees the commercial opportunity of *not* limiting.

I've been with IBB for a few years, but if they don't want my €36es each month, and other people's too, so be it!

NullZer0

luckat wrote:

If they're limiting me I'm going to change provider, as soon as some provider sees the commercial opportunity of *not* limiting.

I've been with IBB for a few years, but if they don't want my €36es each month, and other people's too, so be it!

From my experience there are limits in place with all ISP's. Some more than others.

NTL is the worst by far.
Eircom & BT obviously do because you can get higher speeds if you tunnel it over SSH or use a VPN.

If you are going to be torrenting that much stuff anyway it would be a foolish decision to do it without encryption. Ya know, all those Linux ISO's we all download

ZENER

I have a 3Mb connection and always get full speed - give or take a bit allowing for contention - on Limewire and Transmission. I'm with IOLBB which is now BT. Is the download speed bad all day long ?

Traffic shaping usually changes from hour to hour as people log off or on. I think they decide that X amount of their total bandwidth will be set aside for P2P and torrents and that X is shared among everyone. If only a few people are using these ports then there's more bandwidth to go around i.e. X/n where n= number of users downloading torrents.

At least this is how it was explained to me by Clearwire just before I applied payment shaping to their income stream from me

ZEN

luckat

The speed varies, but it's always slow - maximum 13kbps - over the last few days. It's a nuisance, because it means I leave my computer on all the time, which I probably wouldn't do otherwise. Not good for the environment, or for my ISP's use of resources, as various things are automatically checking in and out even if I'm not using the computer myself, once it's on.

Yes, I do understand that at the moment it's a traffic shaping cartel - but if some ISP wants to come along and say "We don't shape traffic", they'll have a flood of people deserting their old ISPs for it.

And don't give me economic arguments about why this won't happen. I've been listening to them all my life. "Run an airline for the price of buses? Can't be done! It *costs* £500 to fly a passenger from Dublin to London!" etc, etc.

NullZer0

Im sure it will be done.

But look at the quality of service :

"cheap flights dublin to london" - RYANAIR cough cough

luckat

Indeed. And you're absolutely welcome to pay more for a better service!