Torrent Configuration

[Boot]

Thought with yesterday's experiences with the PoE2 release we could use a good thread on Torrent configuration. I am certainly configured wrong... but have no idea what else to do.

What I've done:

• Configured my HW firewall for BitTorrent special applications, which opened ports 6881-6889 and set trigger port to 6969.
• Configured my SW firewall for BitTorrent to be an exception.
• Futzied with my BitTorrent client to keep upload low. Both download and upload drop off significantly when I do this.
• Tested my connection with dslreports.com and received satisfactory results

What else should I do?

[Lorian]

http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Good_settings

You should also use a random port, not the default 688[0-9] as they are filtered by a lot of ISPs. You can check here if the port you have chosen is set up correctly on your firewall/router (just stick your port number on the end): http://www.utorrent.com/testport.php?port=

[Zoopy]

Make sure you have torrent encryption on, some ISPs throttle Bittorrent clients, encryption usually helps. Also make sure to set you upload limits to within that given to you by your ISP, going over may cause your connection to slow to a crawl.

[ScratchMonkey]

Not every tracker uses port 6969, so that may not work for all torrents as a trigger port on your router's port forwarder.

The reason you need to throttle the upload is that every few download packets, you need to send an ack packet to the remote end. If your uplink is swamped by data packets, the ack has to wait in line to get through and slows your download.

However, if you have a better router that does traffic shaping, it can let acks jump to the front of the line, and let other "important" traffic (like your UDP game packets) do the same. That prevents the torrent from bringing everyone behind your router to a crawl.

This is why I use a Linksys WRT54G with custom firmware. It's possible to run the wondershaper script on it to set up Linux traffic shaping to do just this kind of optimization.

[WhiskeySix]

I'm using uTorrent - any suggestions on "Max connections" and "Max Connected Peers per Torrent"?

[msdz]

All my answers were answered for setting up torrent applications from here
http://www.portforward.com/ and here http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Main_Page
It still boils down to reading almost everything that was there and some trial and error. READ all you can before doing anything though, maybe write down or print out instructions to make sure you have them on hand in front of you.

If all else fails turn on DMZ, just have a good software firewall. You leave your computer vulnerable.

[Acreo Aeneas]

Whisky, it depends on the speed of your connection and if you will be limiting the upload rate as well. I would concentrate more on limiting the upload rate, so it isn't consuming too much bandwidth.

For my 1.5mbps connection, I usually set max connections to 3 and max connected peers to 2. That way the seeding isn't consuming all of my bandwidth when I need it to surf the web or download another file.

[icky]

Oh ya, I forgot all about ISP meddling. There are ISP's out there which actively prevent or restrict torrent downloads.

[WhiskeySix]

right... I max at about 43kB/s up, so I cap it at 35kB/s...

But I was wondering if the overhead of having 100 peers would somehow outweigh the benefits.

[Dick Blonov]

Originally Posted by WhiskeySix

I'm using uTorrent - any suggestions on "Max connections" and "Max Connected Peers per Torrent"?

When seeding, my max upload is set at 75KB/s (I have a 5056/800 DSL connection). I set my max upload slots per torrent at 7 (about 10KB/s per slot). I find I seldom reach the max connections (in my case, 50 when only seeding).

DB

[Hambergler]

@ security experts.
Is there anything dangerous about opening a port in a router in this manner, and is there anything we can do to make it less dangerous if it is a potential hazard?
I have been doing it for years and never had a problem that I know of, just wondering.

[Acreo Aeneas]

Whiskey,
If you are capping at 35kb/s, then with 100 peers downloading from you all at once they would receive .25 kb/s each. I would probably have a few connections (2-4), then limit the number of peers to 2. That way each peer would get a decent amount from the 35 kb/s upload cap.

Well, 100 peers I believe would require 100 open connections. In which case, your router or ISP may or may not allow that many incoming connections to your computer. Your ISP might view that many connections as too taxing on their network and that you are trying to run a server (larger load) internet business behind the premise of a residential connection. Perhaps someone can verfiy what I have said?


As far as I know, you shouldn't need to manually open any ports on your router. From your system, it should forward the necessary ports needed for Azereus or some other BT client to run properly.

Manually opening ports usually means that when you're not using it, the port is still open. In other words, you open up 4 ports for a download. You step away for several hours and the download finishes. The ports you opened are still open, wide open. Some cracker (hacker isn't the proper term) could do a port scan on your router then see your opened ports. He/She could then proceed to implanting a keylogger to gather various personal and financial information on you, plant various viruses to "disable" your system, or even turn your machine into a zombie (unwilling participant in infecting other computers or systems).

[WhiskeySix]

Here's the page I'm talking about:



(changed ip to my name for poe2 seeding)


So I'm only uploading to 3 people at a time. But I was curious about the other settings... Set them too low and you don't have enough nodes sending you data. Too many and (I assume?) you loose bandwidth transceiving control data (ACK packets, etc). So I guess I'm wondering what's optimal - or even if my settings are the right order of magnitude.

[=Sarc=]

Originally Posted by Hambergler

@ security experts.
Is there anything dangerous about opening a port in a router in this manner, and is there anything we can do to make it less dangerous if it is a potential hazard?
I have been doing it for years and never had a problem that I know of, just wondering.

There's not much risk. It's only your bittorrent client responding on the port you've opened. Unless there's a security hole with the client you're using, it should be minimal risk.

Originally Posted by WhiskeySix

So I'm only uploading to 3 people at a time. But I was curious about the other settings... Set them too low and you don't have enough nodes sending you data. Too many and (I assume?) you loose bandwidth transceiving control data (ACK packets, etc). So I guess I'm wondering what's optimal - or even if my settings are the right order of magnitude.

The max connections per torrent shouldn't exceed the max global connections. Set max global connections to ~100. You can try higher and see if this affects anything since some routers reset under the strain of too many connections. These settings are mainly for controlling uploads. They won't affect your download speeds much since you cap uploads to just under your max upload speed.

[VegaBond]

I think XP SP2 users don't have 100 connections by default, its set to 10