Ideal Port Setting

[jdacal]

I'm not too familiar with the science of router ports. I can open an close them but as far as the best port to choose for a given application I don't have a clue.

I know ProScan uses port 5000 as a default port, I always try to change default ports under the assumption that someone is likely to try to hack into the system if they know what software and port is being used. I ended up picking a different port number.

I use AVG on the desktop and opened up that port for ProScan, also opened it up on my router to forward it to my desktop.

On my client netbook I was able to tether to my T-mobile Blackberry and got perfectly clear audio, and I mean PERFECTLY clear audio using my cellphone as a modem. It was great!.

Today I went to my brother's house with the netbook, he has broadband and a linksys router. The audio was really choppy. I'm assuming since the router did not have the port forwarding set it was causing the distortion. I guess my question is... is there a standard port I could use that most routers would allow through? Is port 5000 one of those? Can I use port 80? Most routers I would connect through while traveling I would not have access to change their settings. So a reliable port would be great.

Thanks

[Bob]

I'm not too familiar with the science of router ports. I can open an close them but as far as the best port to choose for a given application I don't have a clue.

I know ProScan uses port 5000 as a default port, I always try to change default ports under the assumption that someone is likely to try to hack into the system if they know what software and port is being used. I ended up picking a different port number.

I use AVG on the desktop and opened up that port for ProScan, also opened it up on my router to forward it to my desktop.

On my client netbook I was able to tether to my T-mobile Blackberry and got perfectly clear audio, and I mean PERFECTLY clear audio using my cellphone as a modem. It was great!.

Today I went to my brother's house with the netbook, he has broadband and a linksys router. The audio was really choppy. I'm assuming since the router did not have the port forwarding set it was causing the distortion. I guess my question is... is there a standard port I could use that most routers would allow through? Is port 5000 one of those? Can I use port 80? Most routers I would connect through while traveling I would not have access to change their settings. So a reliable port would be great.

Thanks

Port forwarding set wrong will cause ProScan to not connect. It shouldn't cause breakup. Port 5000 is just a default port picked for no special reason. Port 80 sometimes is blocked on the incoming side as a lot of ISP doesn’t want people to run servers on a non commercial account.

[mike_s104]

In a lot of cases, changing the default password, username and port number is a good practice. BUT, if you are publishing your stream, the port and IP are published as well. You can change it to anything you want as long as you are not using it for anything else. This might help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_TC ... rt_numbers


If you are getting choppy audio remotely, it could be your PC being bogged down (defrag, something else running, backup job, AV), your upload speed or the remote locations download speed.

When you connected your laptop to you BB, did you make sure you were disconnected from any other internal network where your PC with ProScan is running is connected to? If you didn't, it may have just routed the connection locally if the router realized you were attempting to connect inside.

[f1scanner]

I've been running lots of tests with the scanaustralia online scanner streams and Im seeing a BIG difference in performance and forced disconnects (client abnormal disconnect) depending on the time of day im connecting. For 'offpeak' (client side) times, the connection is great. After 4pm the connection is terrible. Its not just proscan....other stream-type connections suffer the same problem. Ive put this down to ISP port throttling, used by ISPs to protect the average joe's bandwidth connecting to the internet at peak times.

What's this gotta do with ideal port setting you say.....well for those streams using some well known/common ports, then the connection at peak time is unaffected by ISP port throttling. So for the two published streams using port 8080 or one on 443, the connection is great 24/7 every day. For all other scanners on other ports, the connection is really variable.

If anyone wants to test with other 'common' ports i'll be willing to help out, but from the client-side experience id say there are big advantages in going for a port commonly used for other things. I'm sure there are other ports that would work good....8080 and 443 are the only two that ive found to be 100% reliable.

Bob