Opening up a port for an MMORPG---Starport:Galactic Empires

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for Comodo firewa
1

I use to use Zone Alarm Pro. But after reading a review of CMF in PC Magazine I decided to switch.

I recently downloaded and installed a MMORPG called Starport:Galactic Empireshttp://www.starportgame.com/. On its support page Support | Starport: Galactic Empires - The Best Free Online Space Game It says
“Starport uses these TCP ports: 7000, 7797, 7807, 7817, 7827
and these UDP ports: 7798, 7799, 7808, 7809, 7818, 7819, 7828, 7829”

Intially when I used the program “Launcher.exe” It just locked up with a notice in the intial page that said connecting to server. After that I surmised it was being blocked by CPF so I shut CPF down and tried to user Launcher.exe again. This time the program was able to connect. So I thought I would have to make a firewall rule to allow those ports inbound to may computer.

After looking through some post here that basically said “Make a network rule with Allow TCP and IP In/out,Souce IP: Any,Detination IP Any,Souce port:Any,Destination port:Any” I decided NOT to do that type of rule. To me that would open my computer up to any host on the internet to any port on my computer no matter what IP address in written in my NIC. To me that is a GLARING security hole.

So I tried to make two seperat network rule . One for TCP, one for UDP, both in bound,both Source IP address ANY,both Destination IP address ANY,Source ports as mentioned above,both Destination ports ANY.

I tred this and still Launcher.exe of Starport just could not connect to the server. Can anyone help me??

2

If CPF is blocking it, then CPF is also logging it. Check CPFs logs to see why. It should state the IP Number, the port number and why (which rule blocked it). Perhaps, you need to move your rule higher in the rule order?

Another useful hint is to temporarily turn on logging for your rule. CPFs log will confirm if the rule is being hit or not.

3

Another thought is to open the ports they stated in the Application Monitor for the actual game itself (you can enter ranges & sets of ports, IP addresses, host names for any given application). This way the ports are only open when the game is running. When the game wasn’t running or when they didn’t match the Application Rule (if the game was running) they’d be stealthed by the Network Monitor.