It has come up several times in various threads, either as "bug reports" or general complaints that users' connections have been falling victims of vigorous traffic shaping rules set by their ISPs.

I propose that as a way to circumvent traffic shaping rules that are set up to catch p2p traffic and deprioritize it (increasing latency as a result) hosts consider using ports in the range of 27000 to 27015. This port range is commonly used by a popular first-person shooter game, Counter Strike.

Due to it's popularity it is very possible that most ISPs will not be throttling traffic that looks like it's related to that game.

The current default port for LFS lies in the range of ports most commonly used by p2p filesharing software (especially bittorrent).

Note: please, for reasons of collecting statistics (and seeing if this actually does have any impact), if you do set your host to this portrange make it known.

Quote from CSU1 :

you cant just announce to go ahead and change ports as obviously this will cause all sorts of confusion!
It will havee to be discussed after testing has been carried out, then and only then should servers start changing ports as noone will know whats going on!

That's why, as per the subject, this is a suggestion and in no way either an announcement or an order. Just an idea for host admins.

Changing the port will not cause any sort of confusion - as soon as the host is restarted on the new port it gets registered with the master server as using said new port and that's that. No one will actually tell the difference (unless they've setup very rigid firewall rules).

at my girlfirends house i suffer from real bad pings. would be interesting if some host decides to change to a lower port so i could try it from her house and see if it's any better.
fyi: she's with Clearwire broadband

Quote from xaotik :

That's why, as per the subject, this is a suggestion and in no way either an announcement or an order. Just an idea for host admins.

Changing the port will not cause any sort of confusion - as soon as the host is restarted on the new port it gets registered with the master server as using said new port and that's that. No one will actually tell the difference (unless they've setup very rigid firewall rules).

Oh! ok, sorry , so there is no need for each player to manualy change port numbers.?

Quote from CSU1 :

Oh! ok, sorry , so there is no need for each player to manualy change port numbers.?

No, this is not a client-side option - hence it's in the "LFS Hosts" subforum. You don't see the port number a server is using every time you connect to a server listed somewhere, do you?

It changes absolutely nothing visible for players other than (possibly, hopefully, maybe) less latency.

Quote from nikimere :

at my girlfirends house i suffer from real bad pings

Lucky you, I usually get decoration-induced nausea... at my gf's house, not yours... ehm... *cough* :P

EDIT:
Also, on relevance to the ping rates - if you mean the rates as displayed in the server listings in LFS (or the ones displayed in Browse For Speed) then this will probably have no affect on those.
AFAIK the rates are just simple ICMP requests and thus not relevant to the port change.

Quote from xaotik :

Also, on relevance to the ping rates - if you mean the rates as displayed in the server listings in LFS (or the ones displayed in Browse For Speed) then this will probably have no affect on those.
AFAIK the rates are just simple ICMP requests and thus not relevant to the port change.

I dont know what Browse For Speed is!?!
I mean when i get up the server list in-game. And if i join i get MEGA lag. Bu tit is a 2MB line.

My GURU servers have been running port 999-1009 for years. Feel free to check them out.

Quote from atledreier :

My GURU servers have been running port 999-1009 for years. Feel free to check them out.

nice one! i'll check them out and report back regarding my situation.

....after a week, are any hosts trying these new ranges?...

For the next month or so new servers with 500servers.com will now have a port range of 22011 - 29999 lets see if it makes a difference.

The liveforspeed.se* and FLP* servers were reconfigured tonight, they're now in the 275?? range.

We did a little testing on the Deadmen Racing server last night. It's been running on port 27000 and my ping was 3000+, we changed it to the default 63392 and ping went back to under 60. I've asked my ISP about 27000 as it's a well known CS port and they'd be mad to shape it. Other players' ping stayed the same across both ports.
We're going to test some more and see what we find.
It would be nice to be able to see what port a server is running on, I'd like to see what it's like on the STCC Public S2(1b?) but that's over 3000 too, does anyone know what port that runs on?

Quote from BigFatCat :

It would be nice to be able to see what port a server is running on, I'd like to see what it's like on the STCC Public S2(1b?) but that's over 3000 too, does anyone know what port that runs on?

Ask SamH

STCC servers are in the 60000+ range as far as client connection goes. It's hard to change it because the server does more than STCC and because the management tool adds another 3 ranges for each server, it's a very complex setup.

It's not been reported as a problem before, but if it is then I am happy to get permission to move things around.

... or becky

One of FLP's servers has "froze" twice since the switch. I've seen it in LFS only once before, all players become invisible and the LAG-o-meter shows up at their last known location. LFS still keeps track of laps, times etc, in other words you can still finish the race. But you can not see your opponents.

Might not be related to the portrange though. It's a linux box running dedi_v through wine.

I've been working, via PMs, with BigFatCat for the past few days. I gave him some specific ports for the STCC servers and his ISP has promised not to shape his traffic on those ports. Just waiting to hear back on how it's gone since then.

Quote from franky500 :

For the next month or so new servers with 500servers.com will now have a port range of 22011 - 29999 lets see if it makes a difference.

Franky - any news on whether or not this works? I'm still having the same issue I had a good few months ago (there's a post on your forums) and I can't even race on my own server :-( I can get onto the Redline Racing servers easy enough however.

My ISP was unable to solve nothing; I might start badgering them again.

Quote from elkdanger :

Franky - any news on whether or not this works? I'm still having the same issue I had a good few months ago (there's a post on your forums) and I can't even race on my own server :-( I can get onto the Redline Racing servers easy enough however.

My ISP was unable to solve nothing; I might start badgering them again.

It seems to make no difference at all.

Quote from franky500 :

It seems to make no difference at all.

It's weird. I can get onto the GURU servers no problem at all, and they use low port numbers. I still can't get onto our 500servers.com server though, unless i'm up until 3am.

I've contacted my ISP about it again, they might be able to shed some light.

Quote from elkdanger :

It's weird. I can get onto the GURU servers no problem at all, and they use low port numbers. I still can't get onto our 500servers.com server though, unless i'm up until 3am.

I've contacted my ISP about it again, they might be able to shed some light.

it still makes no sense. if you can connect to redline servers ect no problems then i dont see why it should stop you joining your own.

Quote from franky500 :

it still makes no sense. if you can connect to redline servers ect no problems then i dont see why it should stop you joining your own.

My thoughts exactly. What ports are their servers on?

Indidentally, I changed the port on our server to 22100 as a test and restarted - i'm able to connect to our server OK now, although I'm unable to determine yet whether or not this is coincidence (being 11:30 at night) but it's something.

I also realise that I might have been outside my rights as a customer to change the port number; apologies if I was, i've changed it back now.

I will change it to 22100 for you as default now. Its possible its a coincidence but we can only hope

Quote from franky500 :

I will change it to 22100 for you as default now. Its possible its a coincidence but we can only hope

Thank you I shall give it a trial run when I get home tonight.