[bf1942] quick question

[Greg Miller]

Neil Brown wrote:

> Right I'll explain a bit better.  Im a home user, with a linux box firewall
> and windows desktop PC.  I ran the linux bf1942 server on the firewall box
> and we all connected fine to that (via a custom port number) but had
> constant connection problem warnings, even on my machine that was connected
> to it by a LAN.
>
> Figuring I'd sort that out afterwards but wanting to play, I tunnelled TCP
> traffic on port 14567 from the net through to my desktop PC and started a
> game on there but no-one could connect (when trying to connect directly to
> the IP of the firewall).  Do I need to tunnel other ports or do you presume
> that I just havent tunnelled the port correctly?
>
> If it helps for either part it is a P2-667 linux box running redhat
> 7.2.  Thanks for any help on either issue (I dont think the second one is
> too far off topic),
>
> Neil.

Okay, I did some analysis on how bf1942 communicates.  As I understand it, when you
start the server, it begins to "listen" on the following ports (14567, 23000,
14690) for UDP traffic
The server also communicates out with (I believe) gamespy servers on port 27900.
During my tests it only did this using UDP, however, I've read other information
saying that the server also uses TCP.  Anyway, communication on this port was
one-way OUT to the internet.

So, to get this to work on a workstation on a LAN, through a firewall, you need to
forward traffic coming to your public IP address on ports 14567, 23000, 14690 to
your workstation, and you need to allow workstation traffic to pass out to the
internet via port 27900.

Other information out there says you need to open up ports 23000 thru 23009, so you
might have to do a range, not just 23000.  Also mentioned was traffic on TCP port
28900, but I don't know which way that supposed to go (my guess is OUT), which may
be related to ASE (All Seeing Eye), but I might be wrong on that.

If you change the default server query port (14567), then you need to forward
queries on that port to the workstation, instead of the default.

Now, if someone has other information that proves me wrong I stand corrected, but
that is what I've seen and read.

Consult your firewall rejection logs to see what may be blocking connection
attempts.

As for your base system, my guess is it is underpowered, but since I don't know how
much memory is in it, that could another factor.  I've found that game servers tend
to beat the hell out of CPU usage, and the more users' the more the CPU-to-memory
bandwidth and memory size plays into the equation.  Finally, bandwidth is also a
factor, particularly upload capability from the server, since that is typically
what limits homeusers from hosting anything other that a handful of users.  I've
seen estimates of needing 20 kbps per user, which means on 128 kbps upload (a
typical limit on cable and ADSL), you probably are never going to do better than 6
users.

I see I've rambled on long enough, hope this helps.

--
name:Greg C. Miller
title:Systems and Network Administrator/Sr. Analyst
e-mail:gmiller at oei-tech.com
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