Da-Nuka

Hello.
Some time ago, i made a chatprogram.
It could both listen on a port for inncomming connections, or send a connection request.

It worked fine on my LAN, but it did not work on the internett.
It was not the firewall, so i guess it is that it needs port-forwarding!

But...how the HECK do other programs make their programs work without forwarding?

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Da-Nuka

Devil Panther

can you please explain what do you mean by port-forwarding...
do you have some local router and you are working with NAT or something like that?

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kuphryn

Well, how does the app not work outside of your network?

Kuphryn

bithub

If an app requires an incomming connection, then port forwarding will be necessary.

The way other apps get around this, is they don't require incomming connnections. Popular chat programs like AIM or ICQ use a centralized server to handle communication traffic. So instead of user1 making a direct connection to user2, both users connect to the server. A user then sends a chat message to the server, and the server sends that chat message to the recipient.

Da-Nuka

Thanks, bithub, finaly someone who understands my question and answerd just perfect

...what about MSN-file-sharing?
Cant the speed of sharing files be speeded up a lot, by doing user1 connect to user 2, instead of doing it thorugh a server?
(What is the case in MSN filesharing?)

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Da-Nuka

bithub

Yes, a direct connection would speed up the transfer since the data doesn't have to be routed through the server. A direct connection requires that at least one of the users has their ports forwarded though.

I'm not familiar with MSN filesharing, so I can't really answer that. I know that most chat programs that have filesharing use direct connections instead of routing the file transfer through the server. The reason behind this is that it would be too much of a load on the server if it had to handle all the filesharing packets as well as the regular chat packets.

Devil Panther

MSN is not like the IRC DCC, the last time I checked it's not direct, but goes thruogh the server.
You can check this for yourself by simply looking at the connections with the netstat command or capture the packets with a sniffer.

__________________
"I don't suffer from insanity but enjoy every minute of it" - Edgar Allen Poe

http://www.Bloodware.net - Developing free software for the community.