BitTorrent ports?

[glenn]

Havard Rast Blok wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm new to the Fedora Test List, so I thought a brief introduction would
> be appropriate: I'm a European software developer and tester currently
> working in the QA department of Altova (the XMLSpy company). I've been using
> Linux since about Red Hat 5.x and made the switch completely a year before
> WinXP. My current pet projects include rememberjava.com and
> jbookmarks.sf.net.
> 
> What I wanted to ask you guys about, is BitTorrent, which should be
> relevant given that Test 3 is now out:
> http://torrent.fedoraproject.org
> 
> The question: Which ports should I open to run BT efficiently (and securely)?
> 
> My current firewall is rather tight, with as few ports as possibly open,
> including the range 6881:6999 TCP source and destination ports, plus
> 33301:34999 on TCP source (not sure if I need those). However, I still get
> loads of junk in my /var/log/message from my iptables setup whenever I run
> BT. Also, the up and down speeds are rather unimpressive; both about 10-20
> KB/s (I'm on a 3 Mb/s cable modem line). Should I open more ports? Should
> I open UDP?
> 
I an using BT and the only ports I have open are the 6881:6999 ports 
that you are using.  I look at "netstat -t" to see how many TCP 
connections are open simultaneous.  The BT speed can be disappointing. I 
am on a service that should let me do 20 KB/s up and abt 550 KB/s down, 
but while I have been sucking the current 32 bit DVD image, I have been 
shipping abt 17 KB/s and rcving from 80 - 140 KB/s.  The latter perf is 
disappointing, but IT IS WORKING :-)

I would not open any more ports for BT, if you are trying to manage 
security.

Good Luck.

-- 
Glenn