VERY basic guide for ED networking

inkmmo

inkmmo
Everything OP wrote is true and I am glad he did it.

However, I would like to point out that this peer-to-peer should not be used as excuse for poor instancing that game offers. This doesn't affect all players and some players might experience it rarely or never while others can experience it all the time. Watching ED PvP League I saw that more time is wasted on getting everyone in instance rather than actual match between teams. Looking from consumer perspective, this is nowhere indicated on store page and it is only written that game requires "Network Broadband Internet Connection" as stated on store page. From consumer perspective, we should not care if it is peer-to-peer or peer-to-server but to have proper instancing.

I also noticed that if player have issues with friend to be in same instance, it might "solve itself over time". I had issue to see a friend in this game and had various bizarre issues. I wrote many tickets to FD support and they blamed me and my ISP even suggested to change ISP. Of course I didn't do that nor my friend. But something happened. After few months, we finally get each other in instance without problems.

I am not bashing anyone, again, I just want to point out that current game networking solution (peer-to-peer) should not be used as excuse for poor instancing.
 

Macy

Macy
Thats a lot of data shooting around between lots of players. No wonder i get rubber banding.
Its all about cost. If FD were a giant like EA, they could use a better system.
 

Legacy_LuckyLuke

Banned
Legacy_LuckyLuke
Thanks for the post OP. Couple of questions:

The OP seems to suggest the uPnP should be switched on to get the most out of ED, but subsequent posts then go on to say that uPnP should never be used. Was the OP a veiled attempt to encourage everyone to set up port forwarding? I'm not trying to be smart, I'm genuinely curious!

uPnP was one of the first things I set up in my router when I got ED. I must admit I'm pretty new to networking in Windows: I only installed Windows on my Mac so that I could play Horizons. Enabling uPnP seemed like a fairly solid thing to do and haven't perceived any issues thus far.

I appreciate there were a couple of links to port forwarding guides in the OP - but this stuff genuinely baffles me. Is there an idiot proof guide somewhere to setting up all the networking services in Windows to ensure maximum security + maximum gameplay ?

Thanks :)
 

Kristov

K
Good post Liqua, have some rep!

As an IT guy, not much to add that's not already been said really, except unlike some of them, I don't get all security paranoid. Having been that guy on the other end doing the hacking, Joe Q Public ain't the target of choice for a direct hack. I wanted to get a lot of unsecured systems, well, there's much easier ways of doing that that don't require ME to do jack but send out some emails, your router and firewalls don't do a thing to stop that, and that's why it's done. Only time I went directly after someone was because they asked me to(lots of us like to test our security) or because they'd done annoyed me a bit too much, in which case, ain't nothing you do except go offline totally going to stop me from getting in your system. That's a fact, no such thing as secure if you are connected to the internet, so..don't annoy random people because you think you are anonymous, you ain't.

Otherwise, well, don't just accept stuff in emails, hell don't open emails from sources you aren't familiar with, that's how they get in typically, no work required, you open the door and invite them in. Stay away from 'warez' and 'hackerz' sites, places like Pirate Bay and such, avoid those 'free movie' sites, and be VERY VERY careful around any religious website! Not kidding folks, those are the most dangerous places on the net these days, no security, easy to take over and put scripts in them, and the average user of those sites is even LESS secure than the sites themselves. My Director of Operations drives me nuts, constantly visiting religious sites, constantly getting trojans and other nasties from them, finally told him, 'you keep getting on that church pron, I'll kill your netcard!'. He's running an AV, well, I'm running an AV that he doesn't know about :) that keeps his system clean now when he's online, he's complained a few times about how slow stuff is online anymore, but I told him it's just his connection...

Firewalls are just good sense, but you really don't need to be paranoid, unless you are a very rich person or very important person, odds are any hacker who gets your information got it from Sony, Target or some other large corporation who's system's have been hacked time and time again...
 

EUS

EUS
The problem from a security standpoint is that this game forces players to run a server.
Technically, this runs afoul of 99% of residential users TOS with their ISP (in Canada anyway, probably the US as well, Europe seems to be more open about internet connections generally).
That aside, I'd suggest that although UPnP is much easier to implement than port forwarding, learn to port forward. It should mitigate the risk.
In short, friends don't let friends UPnP.
 

anikaiful

anikaiful
Port forwarding, or do what I do ... set your modem into bridged mode and forget about all the hassle - smooth ride. For speed reasons I have to use bridged mode anyway - my modem's router mode can't handle speeds above 300 Mb/s.
 

Asp Explorer

Asp Explorer
In all seriousness - I would advise against that. You will be running a public IP, have no other devices on the network unless you use windows ICS, and all sorts of other nastiness.

UPNP is bad, but open internet is orders of magnitude worse :(
 

GammaZ

G
While i understand people's concerns about UPnP, an i do not use it myself (being a bit too paranoid probably), i do not think it increases risks too much for typical home network. Broken/bugged implementations aside, obviously.
Home user do not need protection from inside of the network, unlike corporate ones, and from otside UPnP should not be visible at all. And if connection is initiated from inside of the network (one of the pc-s got infected by malware) whole network will be available for attacker anyway, regardless of if UPnP is enabled or not. It is trivial to bypass NAT from inside even without UPnP. The only difference is with UPnP enabled attacker may try to make some sort of public service out of you, like public proxy, but with typical SOHO router and access to its internal interface he may try it without UPnP too.
IMO it is completely fine to enable UPnP for home users.

Also those people saying "nothing will stop me" are funny. Go get windows sources if you are that cool before claiming it.
 
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anikaiful

anikaiful
Asp Explorer said:
In all seriousness - I would advise against that. You will be running a public IP, have no other devices on the network unless you use windows ICS, and all sorts of other nastiness.

UPNP is bad, but open internet is orders of magnitude worse :(
Click to expand...

Well, I happen to need public IPs anyway, for various reasons and purposes XD (and do have multiple computers on network).
 
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Aewarin Jameson

Aewarin Jameson
LuckyLuke said:
The OP seems to suggest the uPnP should be switched on to get the most out of ED, but subsequent posts then go on to say that uPnP should never be used. Was the OP a veiled attempt to encourage everyone to set up port forwarding? I'm not trying to be smart, I'm genuinely curious!
Click to expand...

You have to do 1 of two things : use uPnP or Port-Forwarding to ensure ED works correctly.

uPnP should work out the box and the average person (non IT) would be non the wiser. I mentioned uPnP first as that is the default setting, so if you are having problems seeing people in game and meeting up with friends the thing to do is check / test if your system is working correctly or not. If it isn't the links to the test methods may help.

If you are feeling up to it I would suggest moving to port-forwarding and removing uPnP.

Last night, 2am ish, I couldn't think how to write this change simply enough so didn't try. However, another poster in here put a link to a reddit post about the same which I found useful, plus there's portforward.com which has plenty of examples for various types of router.

Bottom line: If it's working, don't fix it :)
 

Zelos1983

Z
LuckyLuke said:
Thanks for the reply. I have to say that uPnP seems to be working perfectly as expected with no apparent issue. This thread has just made me paranoid now :)
Click to expand...

If you can make sure that ALL applications/hosts in your home network, including the guests who visit you and use your wifi, don't do anything nasty and you made sure that the uPnP implementation on your router doesn't have security flaws, you're fine.

Personally, I just set up PAT. Less work for me.
 

Frank

Frank
The scary thing for me is how this is the absolute most basic guide to networking <boggle>. I'll read it a few more times and hopefully eventually something will stick in this old noggin of mine.
 

Aewarin Jameson

Aewarin Jameson
Frank said:
The scary thing for me is how this is the absolute most basic guide to networking <boggle>. I'll read it a few more times and hopefully eventually something will stick in this old noggin of mine.
Click to expand...

I feel your pain as I have the same problem with mobile phones. Perhaps use 10% of the capabilities as most of it is way over my head :)

Don't worry too much about the network stuff ... if you have some doubts post here and I will do my best to help.
 

Macy

Macy
After reading this thread i think i need to make some changes. At the moment my pc is connected by cable to an access point upstairs , which is connected by cable to the main router downstairs. I'm sharing the access point with two other pc's upstairs. Everything downstairs is connected wireless to the main router. Maybe i should connect directly to the main router and use port forwarding.
I did this setup so the kids had Internet upstairs.
My pc is closer to the access point than the main router. All i need is a really long cable.
 
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