Firewall settings for Counterstrike and other online gaming? (1 Viewer)

[NickSo]

Hi, i have a Broadband Router, but whenever i play games online, i gotta connect my internet right to the DSL modem (I have two network cards, one goes to the router, one goes to a hub thats directly connected to the router).

Well, when i do connect it directly, theres nothing protecting me from the outide. I wanna be protected, but i wont be able to connect to any online games.

Does anybody know a site that shwos all the port settings and whatnot for online games (Counterstrike, etc)?

I plan on using WIndowsXP's Internet COnnection firewall, coz its the easiest (Zonealarm got to confusing)

Thnaks

 

[Rob Speicher]

You probably don't need to use both the router and the WinXP Firewall. For me, the router alone has been sufficient.
As for settings, I don't think I had to change anything for mine. The only think I can think of is "Respond to Ping on Internet WAN Port" - not sure if CS requires the connecting client to respond to a ping or not.
The default Half-Life/CS port is 27015, but that's just for servers, clients connect on random ports.
Here's your port listings: http://www.iana.org/assignments/port-numbers

 

[John_Berger]

i gotta connect my internet right to the DSL modem

Since when? The only time that you should need to open a port is if you're acting as a gaming server, not client. Routers are intelligent enough to determine where you are connecting to and allow responding packets back into the network. If the server is attempting to make a separate connection to your system, then you need to tell your router to allow the proper port connection to be forwarded to your system. You should NEVER connect directly to the connection -- unless you WANT to get hacked.
(Before you think it won't happen, a friend of mine in New York got hacked this past week after forgetting to turn his firewall back on when he went to sleep. His system was not protected for a maximum of 10 hours and he got whacked.)
All that you need to do is to determine the port (or port range) that the gaming server requires then forward those ports to your PC. Even then, I question why the server would be trying to establish an independent connection.