Cipher's Book of Getting Connectable

Scope

This book doesn't cover everything.  Shoutbox or IRC is a good place to get help if the site pages and this book are not enough...

This book is written for Windows 7, although most of Windows 10 will be very nearly the same.  Further, this book assumes use of the native Windows firewall, not any 3rd party firewall software.

There are some Linux references in places.

The steps for getting Connectable are:

Setting a Static IP address for your seeding computer.

Writing a rule in your firewall to allow traffic to be forwarded.

Configuring your your client.

Configuring your router.

Additionally, any 3rd party Anti Virus software may need to have a rule written or an exception made.

A final consideration is port numbers used.  It is suggested that you use a single port, not a range of ports, in the 50,000 - 60,000 range.  55350 for example.  Once a port number is decide upon, this number will be used in the appropriate places in your firewall, client and router.

Suggested Hardware Setup

Most ISPs issue/lease a Modem/Router combination unit.  You can get connectable with these, but a better solution is to use your own equipment. A separate modem and a separate router.

Your ISP will have some specific modems they allow, and Amazon will have some of this information on the product pages for their various modem offerings.  Most ISPs do not care what router you use.

The Modem used in this book is a Motorola/Arris SB6183, a decent modern modem accepted by many ISPs.  You can ask your ISP for a list of approved modems.

The router used in this book is a Netgear/ Nighthawk X4 AC2350 Smart Router.  There are many other choices, many prefer different brands that can allow custom firmwares to be loaded, but that is beyond the scope of this book, this router will work with factory firmware and do all you need and more.

This book also uses ethernet connections, not WiFi.  If the router you use has limited ethernet connections, you can add a switch.  A Netgear GS208 is used in this book, a simple unmanaged 8 port switch.

What is Connectable

See:  https://www.myanonamouse.net/guides/?gid=40826

In a nutshell:

Connected Mice can share with Connectable Mice ONLY.

Connectable Mice can share with all Mice.

It is desirable to be Connectable, but some Mice cannot for different reasons:

A mouse may be in an apartment complex or dorm where there is a second router not in their control.  

A mouse's ISP may be using Carrier Grade Nat (CGN) due to limited availability of IPv4 addresses.

In either of these two cases, a Mouse could ask that a static IP is issued to them.

If you cannot get connectable, you can still download, upload and seed just fine, just not as well as a Connectable mouse.

Static IP

The first thing you should do is set your seeding computer to use a static IP.  This will insure that your router will always allow traffic to the machine you seed from without having to reset your router configuration if your machine is issued a different LAN IP from time to time.

See: https://www.myanonamouse.net/guides/?gid=31613

I prefer the use of IP Reservation which is the last part of that page.

By doing address reservation in the router and no static IP set on the computer itself, your laptop will never have a conflict when you move it to another network, say using it at a wifi hotspot or at your friend's house, and not getting connected because another computer has already been assigned that IP address.  But it will always be assigned the IP you choose when connected to your network.  This method will also survive and formatting/installation of an OS on the computer.

Use an IP range above .20 to leave room for other devices not needing a static IP that will connecting to your network.  If you have one seeding computer, assign it 192.168.1.20 or 192.168.0.20 as the case may be.  Additional seeding computers can be given .21, .22, etc.

Firewall

What you need is an Inbound TCP rule to allow traffic on the port you choose.  Not nearly as complicated as it sounds, here is the setup for the Windows 7 native firewall.

You start by going to your Control Panel...

The Main Clients

Be sure to use one of the allowed clients.  https://www.myanonamouse.net/rules.php#rsc8

For the purpose of this book the Main Clients are:

qBittorrent

Deluge

uTorrent

qBittorrent

See:  https://www.myanonamouse.net/guides/?gid=40826

UTorrent

See: https://www.myanonamouse.net/guides/?gid=28686

Deluge

See: https://www.myanonamouse.net/guides/?gid=31901

Router

See: https://www.myanonamouse.net/guides/?gid=28699

At the bottom of this page are links to PortForwarding.com to get specifics for your router

And for Linux see: 

https://www.myanonamouse.net/forums.php?action=viewtopic&topicid=37898&page=p375157#375157

And an example of a motorola router