File transfer problems with gaim and amsn

[Michael T. Richter]

On Sun, 2006-22-01 at 10:54 -0600, Charles Malespin wrote:
> > I'm having trouble with gaim(all protocols) and amsn when it comes to 
> > transfering files.  I'm behind a NAT/Router/Firewall, I don't believe I 
> > have ubuntu's firewall enabled.

> Im no expert by any means, but from what I understand any version before
> 2.0(which is in beta I think right now...) doesnt support file
> transfers.  

This is news to me.  I'm running GAIM 1.5 and just today sent a largish
image file to a friend -- through the Great Firewall, no less -- via
YIM.  YIM's file transfer system involves you sending the whole file (at
full speed) to their servers and the other side downloading said file
using what appears at first glance to be straightforward HTTP.

MSN is a different story, however.  MSN's protocol for file transfers is
quite braindead and does, in fact, require a whole lot of ports to be
opened up.  If you don't open them up, they go through a really weird
process that involves sending one small packet at a time to their server
which gets forwarded to the other side, etc. on the same stream that
you're communicating through.  This process is slow, painful and
extremely unreliable.

I can't remember which ports you have to open to get past this (I don't
use MSN for file transfers for this very reason -- I don't like opening
huge swaths of ports for an infrequently used application) but it's
well-documented on their MSDN web site.  Naturally they recommend a UPnP
firewall because even they realise how stupid it is to have ten (!) (if
I remember the number correctly) ports open permanently for such a
trivial app.

--
Michael T. Richter
Email: ttmrichter at gmail.com, mtr1966 at hotpop.com
MSN: ttmrichter at hotmail.com, mtr1966 at hotmail.com; YIM:
michael_richter_1966; AIM: YanJiahua1966; ICQ: 241960658; Jabber:
mtr1966 at jabber.cn
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