Campus -> Campus Connectivity

[snackrifice]

Sorry if this is in the wrong place, it could potentially go to gaming but I figured this is more of a networking thing.

I am attempting to host a Ventrilo server along with a dedicated game server from my computer on my school campus, and play it with 3 friends. There's me, on campus (with a router). 1 Friend is on the same campus (no router), another is at a different school (no router), another is at home (router).

I have done seemingly all the required port forwarding through my router. My friend on campus can connect to Ventrilo, as well as the games server. Both of my friends off campus cannot connect to either. I've made 100% sure they have all firewalls disabled.

We tried using Hamachi to play the game over lan. Everyone can ping everyone over Hamachi but nobody can see the game server showing up in lan.

The next time we get a chance to troubleshoot, the idea will be to change the port in which the game is hosted on. I have a strong feeling that this will not work.

Is it likely that my school is at fault here? Since my friend on campus can connect to everything, it would seem logical that incoming traffic is being denied. But I don't know jack about networking so I'm sure I'm missing something, along with using the wrong terminology 😛.

I'd hate to have to go set these servers up on my old box at home, my energy-conscious dad would not like the my computer running all the time 😛

Sorry again if this is in the wrong place - and thanks for the read.

 

[snackrifice]

The conclusion we came to (as novices at networking) is that the school won't allow external communication for obvious reasons and that this is proven by checking for open ports with various tools / websites, all coming up as stealth or closed.

Anyone know of any workarounds, or of a way to scan an incredibly wide range of ports?

 

[eibgrad]

I suppose you could use a socks proxy or VPN to tunnel your traffic. But that may prove more complicated to setup and manage than you want. It may compromise your game play as well since it adds more overhead due to redirection and game latency (something gamers typically try to avoid).

If you want to at least try something, you might consider Hamachi. It’s a VPN, but a VPN that’s relatively easy to install and configure (and FREE). It creates a virtual network adapter in the 5.x.x.x network over SSL (port 443) which is good because it’s very unlikely the school would block it. SSL is necessary for all kinds of commonly secured activities (online shopping, banking, even access to school resources).

So each of you installs Hamachi, joins the same Hamachi named network, and now you’ve created a distributed, secure, virtual network where you can share resources (folders, files, printers, just about anything you would normally be able to access if you were all on the same PHYSICAL network). You don’t even need to open ports on the firewall since it uses a rendezvous server and NAT traversal to negotiate the firewall for you.

All that said, I’m not sure if gaming over Hamachi would work well (I’m not a gamer myself, so this is all theory as far as using it for gaming purposes, although I would love to know if it worked and worked well). Again, a VPN adds overhead and latency. But once the connections are bootstrapped by the rendezvous server, the connections are direct and form a fully connected network, which is want you want.

Heck, you might want to try Hamachi even if gaming still proves problematic. Something like Hamachi opens the door to many other possibilities! 😉

 

[snackrifice]

Nmap says the port is filtered. Various online port checkers say that port is "Stealth". =\

I don't think Hamachi will work. Like I said we've attempted to get things going over hamachi. We can browse eachothers files and ping eachother but cannot see games popping up in LAN.

I appreciate the response ! Any ideas are very much appreciated it. There's a chance I'm still just missing something on Hamachi.

 

[eibgrad]

Nmap says the port is filtered. Various online port checkers say that port is "Stealth". =\

I don't think Hamachi will work. Like I said we've attempted to get things going over hamachi. We can browse eachothers files and ping eachother but cannot see games popping up in LAN.

I appreciate the response ! Any ideas are very much appreciated it. There's a chance I'm still just missing something on Hamachi.

Ugh, now that I think about it, that makes sense. Everyone's Internet access is still via their respective gateways except when accessing the Hamachi network (5.x.x.x). So there wouldn't be any means direct Internet access *through* Hamachi.

If I think of any other ideas I let ya know.

 

[eibgrad]

Did a little more thinking about Hamachi here and wonder if this might help.

On the game server machine, go to Network Connections->Advanced->Advanced Settings->Connections and make sure the Hamachi virtual network adapter is list first. Reboot and try again.

I suspect the game is only being associated w/ the LAN side, not Hamachi. By changing priorities, maybe we can force it to use Hamachi.

Just seems to me it should work.

 

[snackrifice]

Solved our hamachi problems. It's quite interesting. To get people on to teamspeak (we changed to teamspeak because it lets me change the port I'm hosting the server on, whereas vent does not). Everyone was in hamachi, i used nMap to scan their Hamachi assigned IP for open ports. It showed up with 5 or so for each person, with one or two being the same overall. Hosted the server on that port, had them connect to my hamachi IP on teamspeak - problem solved. Same situation with the game.

Things aren't 100% stable but it is working.

I appreciate the help =]

 

[eibgrad]

Solved our hamachi problems. It's quite interesting. To get people on to teamspeak (we changed to teamspeak because it lets me change the port I'm hosting the server on, whereas vent does not). Everyone was in hamachi, i used nMap to scan their Hamachi assigned IP for open ports. It showed up with 5 or so for each person, with one or two being the same overall. Hosted the server on that port, had them connect to my hamachi IP on teamspeak - problem solved. Same situation with the game.

Things aren't 100% stable but it is working.

I appreciate the help =]

Thanks for the update, I had a feeling this should work.

 

[Alphapix]

Solved our hamachi problems. It's quite interesting. To get people on to teamspeak (we changed to teamspeak because it lets me change the port I'm hosting the server on, whereas vent does not). Everyone was in hamachi, i used nMap to scan their Hamachi assigned IP for open ports. It showed up with 5 or so for each person, with one or two being the same overall. Hosted the server on that port, had them connect to my hamachi IP on teamspeak - problem solved. Same situation with the game.

Things aren't 100% stable but it is working.

I appreciate the help =]

I followed these steps, and I have a buddy connected to my hamashi server. When I tried to ping or scan his hamashi IP with nMap it said host down. Now I think I'm even more of a noob than you with networks, so I don't know what I'm supposed to do at this point...

I did make sure that hamashi is my top-most network adapter.
I am on campus internet, and I don't have a router for the moment.