Quote from the Readme file:
Freelancer uses the standard Directplay ports, so your firewall needs to pass ports 2302 - 2304...

Doesn't Mcafee firewall have a "learn" mode, where it pops up the info about which ports and protocol an application use, the first time it tries to connect to the net ?

If so, then enable those ports it reports freelancer.exe wants to use.. Should only be UDP, according to my own firewall.

B. Rgds

Dutch63

Dutch,
Thanks for the comeback.
I've set the Firewalls customize for Freelancer to UDB ports as you specified, and also for both remote and local ports 2300-2400, as stated in another readme from Microsoft.
I get the McAfee sound beep when the firewall blocks, but no screen to read anything, and a hung/crashed system requiring a hard reboot.
I've been playing with it turned off, but other members over in Geezer tell me I should keep working on getting it up.
Thanks again.
Take care,
Larry Gilberti
(Maus on the Geezer Server)

Dutch,
After replying to you last night, I tried it again, and was overjoyed to see the McAfee block window pop up over the Freelancer Global Server screen, enabling me to hit the "learn" button.
The result was "Connected to Global Server", but no servers came up.
I then quit, and checked the McAfee customize screen, and it "learned" many new UDB protocol ports and settings.
But when I rebooted (.... as my first adventure into the "Windows" world, it's great to see that nothing has changed, still rebooting and screwing with the parameters, as in the days of DOS.... hehe), and logged back in with the new McAfee parameters in place. I wound up with the usual hung system, requiring yet another hard boot.
Again, thanks for your interest, and if you or any reader has any further suggestions, I'd sure appreciated them.
Take care,
Larry Gilberti (Maus)

Personally I do not use Mcafee firewall but zone alarm , but like zonealarm mcafee has an option to set the parameters for a program that accesses the internet

Right click the personal firewall icon , select internet applications , find the permission list and the application (freelancer.exe) and set it to allow full access

it is a little less secure then defining all the UDP ports but atleast it will get you online



Time is too short to hate everybody , just hate a few

I am trying to help these people here. Some of this discussion involves some things here.

I have Zonealarm (ZA) on the FL MP 'puter of mine. Once ZA "learns" what ports and actions FL MP wants to talk on, it's good to go. Sounds like your McAfee isn't learning too well or not enough. Remember a software firewall that "learns" and tries to determine port usage (sending, receiving or both) is different from a hardware firewall. WinXP's software firewall is the exception acting similarly to a hardware firewall. So McAfee learned the FL MP settings to work once. The next time you may use different ports. I seem to remember something that shows many different ports being used during FL MP (remember this is not a problem needing a unnel or learning for a hardware firewall as the port responses are allowed in due to requests from YOUR 'puter). That spread of 2200-2400 or 2300-2400 may not be enough. ZA doesn't prompt you for ports or such, it just says "do I allow this?". Does McAfee do something similar to this or does every port need to be set every time it could or will be used? As Corwin says it is a little less secure but then you WANT FL MP to connect any which way so giving it permission is better than nitpicking every bloody port access!

I also had ZA on my flserver as well. Due to a bug in ZA it occassionally starts looking at every bloody port under the sun. What you have is 60% CPU utilization for flserver and 40% for ZA (actually vsmon.exe which is the executable doing the firewalling for ZA). I just changed to WinXP's firewall. As ZA users know, unfortunately I lost my "Trusted Zone" non-firewalling and thus could not connect to that server's directories and file share (the legal file share between home networked computers!) as WInXP's firewall block's the NetBIOS ports from ALL other 'puters.

Hope I am hitting in the general direction, even if I didn't hit the mark. To network gurus, feel free to correct (and teach) me something different if I messed up.

---------------
Earendil
SysAdmin of Boston Freelancer server