Can you block bittorrent from a linksys router

[strider42]

I live with several other people, and find that at keast one of them uses bittorrent and is really slowing down our connection to the point that its unusable. We've already talked about it, but frankly, people are oblivious. Instead of trying to police the situation, I just want to block it at the router. I have a linksys router. I'm sure I could do this by blocking ports, but I don't know which to block. Can someone help, or can you give me other advice on ways to stop this program from getting through the router. Thanks.

 

[richard.mac]

go onto his computer and check which port his bittorrent client is using and then close that port on your router and change/add a login password to your router.

 

[jmann]

I live with several other people, and find that at keast one of them uses bittorrent and is really slowing down our connection to the point that its unusable. We've already talked about it, but frankly, people are oblivious. Instead of trying to police the situation, I just want to block it at the router. I have a linksys router. I'm sure I could do this by blocking ports, but I don't know which to block. Can someone help, or can you give me other advice on ways to stop this program from getting through the router. Thanks.

One thing you can do is disable Universal Plug 'n Play (UPnP) if it's turned on. That will at least slow them down. There is not much you can do.

 

[DavyC412]

go onto his computer and check which port his bittorrent client is using and then close that port on your router and change/add a login password to your router.

he cant, he doesnt know whos computer it is. the best bet is to go to port forwarding in the router. see who has ports open. unfortunatley this will only work if hes the only one who has is using port forwarding for his torrents.
advanced>forwarding (alternativley you can turn them all off from here, it should screw up anyone trying to download.

linksys boxes i do believe also have a logging system. perhaps you can use that to monitor traffic.

basic>log>enable then have it send the log to you

but why be an ass, just ask that whoever is downloading share all the DL's over your network so you can all enjoy

also, it doesnt sound like hes using up your bandwidth. rather, having your connection pretty much drop is a sign youre being throttled.

 

[strider42]

he cant, he doesnt know whos computer it is. the best bet is to go to port forwarding in the router. see who has ports open. unfortunatley this will only work if hes the only one who has is using port forwarding for his torrents.
advanced>forwarding (alternativley you can turn them all off from here, it should screw up anyone trying to download.

linksys boxes i do believe also have a logging system. perhaps you can use that to monitor traffic.

basic>log>enable then have it send the log to you

but why be an ass, just ask that whoever is downloading share all the DL's over your network so you can all enjoy

also, it doesnt sound like hes using up your bandwidth. rather, having your connection pretty much drop is a sign youre being throttled.

No, its because he was using the bandwith. When I was first trying to trace the cause of our slow connection, I wanted to isolate computers and see if any of them was the cause of the problem. When we turned his off, the problem instantly went away. He then said something about him using bit torrent. Seemed to fit. I figured that would make him realize that hey, maybe he should be considerate, but apparently not, hence the looking for a way to block it all.

Some sites said to block ports 6881-6999 which I did, and it seemed to work. I also lowered the upload speed for everyone, and configured some quality of service stuff, but I don't know if that was effective because the router seems to indicate that only applies to hardwired connections. But in any event, it actually seems to be working at the moment. Connection is going fast. So we'll see if it lasts. If not, a further conversation will be necessitated, but if I can just end it like this, I'm happy. I hate having to play cop with roommates: policing what they do. Just enforcing it from the get go would be my ideal. I imagine he could get around the port blocking I did, but he actually doesn't strike me as that tech savvy to be honest, so for the time being maybe this will do.

But sitll open to other ideas if anyone has them.

 

[pranavss11]

I know what you mean man. My room mate is ALWAYS on utorrent. I call out to him every 30 mins he turns it on and tell him to turn it off. It's really frustrating. Turns out he was port forwarding so I just disabled the ports and now he keeps complaining about utorrent not working but I play the innocent card

 

[rontheancient]

There is not much you can do. If you block his ports for BitTorrent, he can easily change it. The closest thing you can do is to de-prioritize all his net traffic like you are doing now.

 

[GimmeSlack12]

I generally find with Bittorrent that the upload speed is what really kills the total network. I am the Bittorrenter in my house and have had requests often enough to "fix it", since my roomates are really really illiterate. So I found that having an upload speed of 20kbps to not screw anything up. The download speed I've never limited and have never seen any slowdowns.

See if whoever's doing it if they can just limit their upload speed. Otherwise you gotta find the port they're using and block it.

 

[wizzracer]

Just find his MAC Address in the router and throttle it down to a usable speed. You can apply restrictions as well.

And disable UPN on your machine as well as the routers. It's not good to have this enabled on any machine.

 

[trainguy77]

Once overkill solution would be to replace the linksys with a m0n0wall box and use the traffic shaper feature to make bit torrent traffic low priority and everything else high priority so he can still use bit torrent but not at the cost of others.

 

[kastenbrust]

Blocking port 6881-6999 is good because of course it will block him downloading torrents, but it doesnt take a genius to work out that if your internet is working and your torrent downloader isnt that its ports have been blocked and it would be as easy as 2 clicks for him to change the ports his torrents use to download, and anyone could do it, so its only a temporary fix, and when he changes the ports that his torrent program uses (he could choose anything from 0 to 99999) then you'll have to actually go onto his computer to find out what ports he's using.

Also limiting the upload speed on your router for everyone is a bad idea because it affects how fast you use the internet as well and wont affect his torrent download speeds because he only needs 20kbp/s upload speed on his torrents to gain the maximum possible download speeds. So you should remove that limit.

Also password the router with something that isnt obvious because router ip addresses are fairly simple to gain or even guess and he could then unblock his ports.

Disable upnp on the router.

Enable the routers firewall, if you can, tell it to block uTorrent, Transmittion, Azureus, Vuze, Bittorrent.

Find his MAC adress (nothing to do with Apple Mac's, it means Media Access Control, every computer has one) from the routers DHCP Client List, and throttle it to 50 kbps.

 

[BlueRevolution]

(he could choose anything from 0 to 99999)

0 to 65535.

 

[Theophany]

No need to do anything router-side, just set up traffic scheduling on the torrent client. During sociable hours of the day, make bittorrent throttle itself to a lower DL/UL speed and during the night, schedule the client to open up. Problem solved and nobody needs to get involved in house drama

 

[kastenbrust]

No need to do anything router-side, just set up traffic scheduling on the torrent client. During sociable hours of the day, make bittorrent throttle itself to a lower DL/UL speed and during the night, schedule the client to open up. Problem solved and nobody needs to get involved in house drama

That would involve the person owning the computer doing the downloading to want that, which they dont.

 

[Theophany]

That would involve the person owning the computer doing the downloading to want that, which they dont.

And your point is what? If they're ruining the Internet connection speed for everybody else, risking being tracked AND not paying a larger share of the Internet/phone bill, I'd say what they want is pretty irrelevant.

If you're hell-bent on messing around with the router, just block their MAC address entirely until they agree to play nicely. It's how Putin manages things, works for him.

 

[claimed4all]

No need to do anything router-side, just set up traffic scheduling on the torrent client. During sociable hours of the day, make bittorrent throttle itself to a lower DL/UL speed and during the night, schedule the client to open up. Problem solved and nobody needs to get involved in house drama

That right there would be your best bet, as have living in the that exact situation before, as long as you don't just take away their torrents, they will probably will work with you on it. Then if they start to break the rules after an agreeable understanding is made, thats when you block them. All torrent programs have a nice scheduling feature for just that.

 

[Consultant]

They don't have to turn it off.

Just tell him or help him set a max upload limit. Maybe 10% of your UL bandwidth.

 

[RandomKamikaze]

Its a bit hard for the OP to ask this person to do anything when they don't know who it is, isn't it really?

Your options are, change the firewall to only allow outbound services that your need, such as IM, HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP etc etc but then you run the risk of finding new services for a while meaning a change and nothing stops the torrenter in question from just using those ports.

Alternatively, you could see if your router can do logging to see who is doing what. Or you could use something like wireshark to "sniff" your network.

If you are able to find out the users MAC address, you could then set a DHCP reservation so he always gets the same IP address then apply traffic calming measures to that IP so everyone can enjoy unrestricted access.

 

[wizzracer]

Its a bit hard for the OP to ask this person to do anything when they don't know who it is, isn't it really

He knows who it is, See second post.

The UPnP is a BW killer to start with and a security risk to boot.

 

[RandomKamikaze]

He knows who it is, See second post.

I live with several other people, and find that at keast one of them uses bittorrent and is really slowing down our connection to the point that its unusable. We've already talked about it, but frankly, people are oblivious.

He doesn't exactly who is doing it, only that one or more people are doing it and with the "people are oblivious" they either don't care and are selfish little ******** or they don't want to own up to it as what they are downloading is more than likely illegal.

If there are only a few of you, set some reserved DHCP addresses then lock 'em down

 

[bay2sacto]

He doesn't exactly who is doing it, only that one or more people are doing it and with the "people are oblivious" they either don't care and are selfish little ******** or they don't want to own up to it as what they are downloading is more than likely illegal.

No, its because he was using the bandwith. When I was first trying to trace the cause of our slow connection, I wanted to isolate computers and see if any of them was the cause of the problem. When we turned his off, the problem instantly went away. He then said something about him using bit torrent. Seemed to fit. I figured that would make him realize that hey, maybe he should be considerate, but apparently not, hence the looking for a way to block it all.

Looks like the OP knows who it is. Depending on the BT client, some have the ability to pick a random port each time the app starts. uTorrent does this. I would approach him and ask that he set bandwidth limits in his BT client and if he's unwilling have his internet access cut off.

This can be a real PITA if you also depend on VOIP phone service.

 

[RandomKamikaze]

Looks like the OP knows who it is. Depending on the BT client, some have the ability to pick a random port each time the app starts. uTorrent does this. I would approach him and ask that he set bandwidth limits in his BT client and if he's unwilling have his internet access cut off.

This can be a real PITA if you also depend on VOIP phone service.

Oh....my apologies...why can't I see that post?!

 

[Consultant]

You can see if you can install a third party firmware in the router that allows bandwidth shaping, or get a router that allows it. Linksys has one made with extra ram specifically for linux.

Oh....my apologies...why can't I see that post?!

It's post #5, but the second post made by OP (original poster) in this thread.

 

[RandomKamikaze]

It's post #5, but the second post made by OP (original poster) in this thread.

Oh yeah...sorry about that people...*gets coat and leaves while on phone to get eyes checked and contemplating removing FF beta*

 

[claimed4all]

Youl could also look into installing DD-WRT on your router. I am going to tackle it this weekend and it allows for alot more managment of bandwidth and what not. Its aleast worth looking into.