Connecting to testnets: ports, IGDs, etc

The recent Comnets and the difficulties in joining as a node makes me wonder if @maidsafe is going to take some steps forward in developing the connectivity with the end user?

At least me and @Sascha are having huge problems in setting port forwarding. Our situations differ slightly, but we both end up in having everything set right in our routers / modems - and port forwarding ‘just not working’. I have, for example had a professional guy to set it up for me, changed my router after suspecting device fault, escalated the issue with my ISP, and nothing has solved the situation so far. I have also enabled UPnP IGD setting, and it doesn’t work.

There has been lot’s of enthusiasm about the Comnets, but the amount of participants is limited. I think the difficulties in connecting are a big reason for this.

The connection as a node is essential part of the network. I think it is a minor, but important detail in the scope of the whole project. Would it be reasonable to direct some working hours to get the UPnP - IGD aspect working soon?

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We’ll get there. It’s definitely something we want to improve. But at the moment stability is key. We won’t be focussing on IGD (which is a whole thing) until we get those comnets lasting longer, I’m afraid.

(Though we’ll happily accept PRs looking into improving this!).

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A bummer to sit on the sidelines but understandable.

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Folks can always rent a cloud server, mine is about $5/month and is a handy place to mess about with things like hosting my own VPN, a website etc., not just for testnet nodes.

I can’t connect from my mobile broadband. I do have an Odroid attached to fixed broadband but rather than mess about with the router I’m just using the cloud server for now.

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Do you have any idea about why mobile is not working for you?
Doesn’t the fixed line work currently for you either?

I haven’t actually even been able to do any port forwarding or open any ports at all. But that is my personal problem, and has little to do with the Safe network. It’s just how I noticed it.

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I’ve no idea about the mobile b/b issue and am just waiting until MaidSafe get to looking into things like that. In the past I did port forwarding on the fixed b/b but haven’t tried recently as it’s just easier to use the cloud server. At some point I’ll try it again, probably as soon as the testnets are more stable or if I just feel like setting it up.

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Good point but I want that truly decentralized experience :star_struck:

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I was thinking if we could eventually use, or implement something similar, to what Tor offers as Tor hidden service: Tor Hidden Services | Linux Journal, if Elders can connect to an Adult behind a Tor hidden service address it sounds like one potential solution, perhaps just as a transition before Safe natively provides something like it.

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I understand and agree with the preference.

Meanwhile, has anyone actually sorted out some problems with port forwarding? Or is just so that it works for some and not others?

I know how to check if a port is open or not, but is there a way to check if IGD works as it is supposed to?

This muddled nature of the problem drives me crazy!

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Me too!

There’s actually a newer version of IGD too just to sow more confusion. So some of the existing libs for it aren’t updated for that yet either. And then you have all the vendors with their own, often faulty implementations.

We will get to it though. I’m sure the power of the community will shine through here as we do too (it will be needed for testing across the wide variety of configs out tere).

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We should be able to do a blind proxy type device as well.

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Maybe this is interesting:
https://www.home.stackos.io/

they claim to be a decentralised aws
(the coin is an interesting one for 2022…no financial advice :wink:)

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I’ve been trying to get around to setting something up on Akash (or trying to at least) as a way of attracting eyes from that community and just because it would be fun, but time has been a little scarce. Hopefully soon.

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Has anybody manually opened any ports on their routers? If so, does this page reflect their status correctly?

Do you use any other/better sites?

What is your preferred command for checking port status on Linux? nmap?

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Shields UP.
https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

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I have ports 12000 and 15000 open on my router but this site claims they are closed…

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How about the site @jlpell linked?

For me it says ‘stealth’ for a port I have set open.

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Could you give me the output of some meaningful nmap command?

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That means it’s not open :alien:

“Open” is open.
“Closed” means that your computer responded to the probe, but that the port was closed and connections are not allowed.
“Stealth” means that absolutely NO response was obtained from the probe… that the port doesn’t exist to the outside world.

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That could be because of a non-standard protocol for those ports. The fact that they are shown as closed means that these ports are responding to the probe.

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