Problem with firewalls

[Kirk Davies]

I connect to the internet via my wife's computer. She runs a Network Address Translation (NAT) program called WinRoute (www.winroute.com) to allow more than one computer to share a modem.

The problem is that my wife can connect to Marrach, but I can't. If I connect to www.skotos.net:8080, (http://www.skotos.net:8080,) I just get the normal port 80 pages.

I've searched through your site trying to find a solution to the problem, but can't seem to find a clue. I know there is a problem accessing through a firewall, but can't find any details.

What I *did* find was the following in the FAQ:

Q: What are the system requirements?
A: Anyone with a computer, a web connection, and a web browser can play at Skotos.

Perhaps the FAQ could be updated to mention whatever it is that stops the system being accessible through a firewall!

Thanks for listening, and I hope this is the right forum.

[Seidl]

This is a little strange. The natd should remap 8080 correctly. Are you sure its natd instead of another piece of firewall software?

Which client are you using? If you're using the java one (running netscape), send me email. I've been owrking on a few things to try and make the client more firewall friendly, and we could work through the bug and try to get a patch into my beta client.

Now that I think on this more. I think I'm really confused. What exact URL are you going to, and what page are you getting? Does the client start? Or can you not even get the the page with the client on it?

I'm pretty sensitive to firewall issues (why I started my beta client in the first place), so we can try to figure out whats wrong if you want.

-=- Matt aka. Martel

[JeffCrook]

I tried connecting from work (Postal Service) and got a blank blue screen. I just thought it was a firewall issue, as I know we have one that also prevents connecting to any kind of streaming media.

[Seidl]

The standard firewall thing I've seen is everything loads, but no client start.

Are you getting that, or simply no graphics beyond the blue background?

Do you know what kind of firewall you have? Are there any standard and authorized ways through it? like netcat or SOCKS?

One of my goals with my java client is to work to make versions that are more firewall friendly, if people are stuck behind firewalls and can help work with me to find ways through them.

-=- Matt aka. Martel

[Kirk Davies]

Originally posted by Seidl:
This is a little strange. The natd should remap 8080 correctly. Are you sure its natd instead of another piece of firewall software?

Ok, it's definitely NAT because I can telnet and ftp from my machine without any proxy settings. Other software I use is Napster and mIRC, which I mention here for completeness.

Which client are you using? If you're using the java one (running netscape), send me email. I've been owrking on a few things to try and make the client more firewall friendly, and we could work through the bug and try to get a patch into my beta client.

I'm not using *any* client - I don't get that far!

Now that I think on this more. I think I'm really confused. What exact URL are you going to, and what page are you getting? Does the client start? Or can you not even get the the page with the client on it?

Ok, it's like this: I am running IE5 under Windows 2000, using NO proxy. I am on a LAN that connects to the internet through a PC running Windows 98SE running WinRoute Pro as the packet routing software.

I connect to www.skotos.net (http://www.skotos.net) and get the first page with the three pictures (StoryPlayers, StoryTellers, StoryBuilders).

There's a button there, "Today's Features: Castle Marrach"; if I click on that, I go to the big castle page, from which I registered as a beta tester.

There is a "Play Now" picture on the right, and a "Play Now" menu item on the left. Both of these have www.skotos.net:8080 (http://www.skotos.net:8080) as their link. If I click on either of these, I get the top Skotos pages (menu plus three pictures) embedded in the right-hand pane, rather than any logging-in page.

I'm pretty sensitive to firewall issues (why I started my beta client in the first place), so we can try to figure out whats wrong if you want.

So I guess this isn't a known problem! Damn. I hope I can be of some help in tracking this down. I'm looking into WinRoute oddness at the moment...

[Seidl]

O.k., I'm not a PC routing guy (unix is my friend), but I'll take a stab. Also, if this is not bought software, I can take a look at it on one of my NT boxes if you give me a pointer.

My guess is that either WinRoute is trying to be "smart", and shift 8080 down to port 80 (since 8080 is a fairly standard proxy port), or something else is leading to this shift. Maybe IE? Have you tried using netscape? Just one option to help figure out if its the browser to the reouter doing the badness.

-=- Matt aka. Martel

ps. Another idea, can you telnet out to strange ports? Might be another way to figure out where the problem is.

[Kas Sommers]

Originally posted by Kirk Davies:
I connect to the internet via my wife's computer.


Aaarrgghh! Now it's happening to me. I am the above-named wife and had no problems accessing and playing Castle Marrach until this morning when I first started using my new computer.

Now I can't play with the same symptoms Kirk described above. He's fixed the problem on his PC, but what did he do? I don't know!

So until he provides me with the fix - Charmiam will languish in her room, thinking deep thoughts.

Kas

[JeffCrook]

Originally posted by Seidl:
Are you getting that, or simply no graphics beyond the blue background?

Do you know what kind of firewall you have? Are there any standard and authorized ways through it? like netcat or SOCKS?


Just the blue background. As for what kind of firewall, it's the postal service, so that would be top secret information. I'd be afraid to ask. And I wouldn't be able to get access through it without telling them why I want it. "Uh, I want to log into my favorite online rpg?"

[stealthkat]

I have no idea if this would help at all in the continued development of the clients, but I did try the Alice client on two WIN 98 PCs, running IE 5.5 again from work. One of them was my laptop which I use to run Marrach at home through an internet dial-up connection.

About a month ago, I couldn't get past the 'Play Now' button. Yesterday, I was able to see the client window except for the map and the text area. The error message reported back to me was in a window with the title "Pueblo." The exact error message on my PC was, "The host marrach.skotos.net rejected the connection. This world may be temporarily unavailable, and you might want to try a little later." On my laptop the error message was slightly different in that the host name was SkootOnInn. Both were attempting to connect to port 8000 which I noticed was different from the port 8080 I remember from a while ago.

I realize it may be helpful to ask what type of firewall my company is running, but I don't really have a good reason to ask at this point. Besides, if the men in black told me, they'd have to kill me, and I really want Katherine to attend the Winter Ball this Saturday.

Kathy