Ports for Yahoo! Messenger

I sometimes use Yahoo! Messenger to communicate with friends around
the world (it tends to be quicker than the weeks / months it takes me
to reply to an email).

Unfortunately on a number of occasions I have tried to use the option
to send a file to a friend. It seems that rather than send the file,
what it does is invite them to come and collect it. Whilst the person
at the other end sees the offer of the file, when they click on it, it
will not connect and gives them an error (I don't know the exact
message) about a firewall preventing them.

I'd quite like to fix this issue but I am not really sure where to
begin so any help would be appreciated.

The machine from which I generally run YM is running XP Pro (SP2) and
runs ZoneAlarm locally. It connects to the internet via a Netgear
DG834G on which the default firewall rules are unchanged (which are
basically inbound block everything, outbound block nothing).

So is it the router blocking people out from picking up that file or
is it the local machine and how would I get around it?

ZA asks if YM is allowed to act as a server and I say yes. However an
element of XP (generic host processes or somesuch) sometimes asks if
it is allowed to accept connections from the internet, to which I say
no. Would this cancel out allowing YM to act as a server? Or could
it be that the router is blocking the file request? Theoretically it
should not as the request was not unsolicited (i.e. I offered it up to
the other user).

Any help appreciated.

On 18 Oct 2004, in uk.telecom.broadband, Simon Pleasants wrote:

>I'd quite like to fix this issue but I am not really sure where to
>begin so any help would be appreciated.
>
>The machine from which I generally run YM is running XP Pro (SP2) and
>runs ZoneAlarm locally. It connects to the internet via a Netgear
>DG834G on which the default firewall rules are unchanged (which are
>basically inbound block everything, outbound block nothing).

I don't have a DG834 (but can view a DG814 control panel) and have
never used ZoneAlarm. I've just checked what info is shown on my
Yahoo! Messenger preferences (this is the one which is used for BT
Communicator, but probably similar). Under file transfer, it will
let you define some specific port number to be used for FTP (mine
shows port 80, but by default port 80 would not accept traffic to
my PC except in response to requests). So you could specify some
port, then add rules to ZoneAlarm to allow requests, and set up a
port forward from the DG834. You would presumably also need to
add a rule for the DG834 firewall, too. Peter M.

On 18 Oct 2004 in uk.telecom.broadband, Simon Pleasants wrote:

>I have tried to use the option to send a file to a friend

If you have webspace and a reasonable speed connection, you could
just upload it. Gets around many firewall/router/security issues
and allows the intended recipient to get it when convenient. PGM

Yahoo messenger uses port 5050.


"Simon Pleasants" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> I sometimes use Yahoo! Messenger to communicate with friends around
> the world (it tends to be quicker than the weeks / months it takes me
> to reply to an email).
>
> Unfortunately on a number of occasions I have tried to use the option
> to send a file to a friend. It seems that rather than send the file,
> what it does is invite them to come and collect it. Whilst the person
> at the other end sees the offer of the file, when they click on it, it
> will not connect and gives them an error (I don't know the exact
> message) about a firewall preventing them.
>
> I'd quite like to fix this issue but I am not really sure where to
> begin so any help would be appreciated.
>
> The machine from which I generally run YM is running XP Pro (SP2) and
> runs ZoneAlarm locally. It connects to the internet via a Netgear
> DG834G on which the default firewall rules are unchanged (which are
> basically inbound block everything, outbound block nothing).
>
> So is it the router blocking people out from picking up that file or
> is it the local machine and how would I get around it?
>
> ZA asks if YM is allowed to act as a server and I say yes. However an
> element of XP (generic host processes or somesuch) sometimes asks if
> it is allowed to accept connections from the internet, to which I say
> no. Would this cancel out allowing YM to act as a server? Or could
> it be that the router is blocking the file request? Theoretically it
> should not as the request was not unsolicited (i.e. I offered it up to
> the other user).
>
> Any help appreciated.

On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 20:21:23 +0000 (UTC), "It's Me" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Yahoo messenger uses port 5050.

Thank you (and Peter M).

I confess I have not really looked into it, I was just sitting at work
and figured I ask while I remembered. The router should be easy
enough, but whether or not I can open up ports in the free version of
ZA remains to be seen.