Viewer 2 and Firestorm log me out

[Elysse Snowfield]

At my local library, Internet service is firewalled (MS Forefront).  I can log in with Viewer 2 and Firestorm, but I'm consistently logged out after 1-2 minutes.  With Phoenix, I don't have this problem.  With direct Internet at home, any viewer works fine.

Is there anything I could try on the Viewer 2 platform to stay logged in when behind a firewall?  Obviously it must be doing something differently with networking as compared to Viewer 1.  I've tried changing some of the Networking settings, but to no effect.  Thanks for any suggestions...

 

[Nalates Urriah]

The Library will have an IT manager. Probably a contractor or one guy for several libraries or perhaps the entire city if it is small or a team if it is large. You'll need to ask him/her what's up. Often they are trying to control bandwidth use or secure the network. SL uses a load of bandwidth. So, they may be deliberately blocking it. 

SL uses a number of ports when working, 8 or 10. I suspect most of the ports are blocked to incoming and outgoing, which is not the normal firewall. On a home system almost none of the outgoing are ever blocked. As the viewer tries to arrange communications on different ports the answer backs from the servers are likely not making it through the libraries firewall.

You may also have a local network behind a firewall. If so, a server or network router will act as a gateway to the Internet. It can control access and bandwidth. If the library has a low performance network, they may throttle individual computers. When any computer uses more bandwidth than they think it should, the deliberatly slow it down, which could result in the logouts.

If it does run on a local network, the incoming traffic would have to be routed to your computer. The router would not know what to do with any port open request originating from outside the library. While it can track and handle traffic originating from your computer and get the corresponding messages back to you channels/ports opened by the server will get lost. The router simply dos not know where to send them. That's why routers have game setup controls.

You can find information for which ports are needed in: Second Life Firewall.

[Elysse Snowfield]

Thanks, I'll check with the admin over there.  I guess I need to set up a proxy for Firestorm.  I still don't understand, because Phoenix works fine without a proxy...  but whatever makes Firestorm work.