DCC From a "Rented" BroadBand Connection in a Hote

[Norma Roy]

I travel often and I generally purchase broad-band access to the Internet through the hotel in which I’m staying. Sometimes, I can DCC Chat and DCC Send to my heart’s content. Other times, I can’t do either.

I’m assuming that the cause is the hotel’s modem/firewall configuration, but I’d be curious to know exactly what setting they’re selecting that blocks DCC.

I’d be even more curious to know if there’s a workaround that I could try for those locations where DCC is blocked.

ConfusedinHouston
11 July, 2006

[orange1]

it's probably just a firewall. when you initiate a dcc send or dcc chat, your client sends a message to the other that says "connect to my ip at this port". if that port is blocked, you're SOL (unless you're the firewall admin).
one way around that might be to set up an vpn server at home to route all your traffic through. that might also be slow, though.

[Osc]

dcc send works sorta like this:

ABC sends:
NOTICE XYZ :DCC Send filename (ABC's IP address)

This is the first part, and it's what is probably the problem.
You send what your client see's as your IP address. In a hotel,
you probably have a rfc1918 address (non routable), so XYZ can't connect.

To fix this would require you to have access to the router at the hotel.

[Dario]

IF you are offerened the option of "Applying for a Public IP Address" when you sign in to the Hotel's Hi-Speed Provider, you may avoid this issue.

[Handle With Care]

If it sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, from the same laptop with the same configuration of the IRC program, then it is probably the hotel blocking port 113 and others.

I don't know about the other programs, but mIRC requires port 113 for various purposes. It also requires that the configuration for DCC ports be identical matches to the hotel firewall's port numbers if they permit DCC at all.

I can only assume the places where you have no problems with DCC also have no firewall or any restrictions whatsoever.

[Handle With Care]

If it sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, from the same laptop with the same configuration of the IRC program, then it is probably the hotel blocking port 113 and others.

I don't know about the other programs, but mIRC requires port 113 for various purposes. It also requires that the configuration for DCC port range be identical to the hotel firewall's port if they permit DCC at all.

You should be aware of two further considerations. Check with the hotel about their firewall access. Most locations with firewalls, if they have them at all, have completely different ranges of available ports. Further, if, say, they have 20 ports available (standard firewall configuration), and 32 people up/downloading, or 2 other people simultaneously up/downloading 10 files each, you'd be out of luck.

I can only assume the places where you have no problems with DCC also have no firewall or any restrictions whatsoever.

[HM2K]

I usually use CGI:IRC based clients when away from my machines, however you can't use DCC on these clients.

Try using: http://chat.efnet.org/