How to host races

How to host races in VSK4

If you are able to sail in other people's races in VSK, but nobody joins your races, or your friends tell you that they get a "Cannot connect" error message, then you have a port forwarding problem. Something on your network is either blocking the port used by VSK, or something is not forwarding the traffic on that port to the computer running VSK. The usual culprits are software firewalls (ZoneAlarm, BlackIce, Windows Firewall, etc.) or hardware firewalls (a router), or less frequently, by your ISP.

The precise procedure for allowing you to host races in VSK will vary depending on your particular setup. However the general steps are the same for everyone:

1. Assign a static IP address to the computer you will be playing VSK on.
2. Poke a hole in your firewall(s) to forward UDP and TCP traffic on port 2350 to the machine running VSK.

The process below is for hosting VSK from behind a Linksys router and a ZoneAlarm firewall. You may need to look around in your hardware/software for equivalent settings. If your hardware/software does not have equivalent settings then you should consider getting better hardware/software... If you do not know how to configure your router www.portforward.com has an extensive list of guides.

I've also added sections for configuring the Windows Firewall and Windows Internet Connection Sharing. Since I don't actually use either program these instructions should be considered experimental. It is also assumed that you have Service Pack 2 installed. I don't know if all of these features are available in earlier versions of ICS or the Windows Firewall.

1. Collect some information

Before we start you will need to go to the router's status page and collect some information that we will need. For the purposes of this document we will assume you are using the subnet 192.168.1.* and the router's local IP address is 192.168.1.1.

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1. This is the status page for the router. Depending on the model of your Linksys router this information may be on a different tab.
2. This is your router's LAN (local) IP address.
3. This is your router's WAN (Wide Area Network) address assigned by your ISP. Make a note of this address.
4. These are the DNS servers provided by your ISP. Make a note of these addresses. You will only need the first two addresses.

2. Configure DHCP

If you are using DHCP on your network, that is, the router automatically assigns IP addresses, you will need to configure it so we can assign a static IP address to the computer(s) you will be using to play VSK. It is a Bad Thing if the DHCP server assigns the IP address we want to another computer.

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1. This is the router's DHCP configuration page. If you do not have DHCP enabled you can skip this step.
2. This is the starting address the DHCP server will use. The value you enter here isn't that important. Just make sure that you leave some "room" for the static IP address you will assign to your computer. We have several computers in our home with static IP addresses and some that use DHCP, so a value of 100 here gives us lots of local addresses to use without having to worry that the DHCP server will try to use the same ones.
3. This is the number maximum number of clients the DHCP server will assign addresses to. Again, the value you use here isn't that important, just make sure the number is larger than the number of computers that you want the DHCP server to assign address to. It's also likely a good idea if the sum of starting address plus the maximum number clients is less than 255.

3. Assign a static IP address

Next you will need to assign a static IP address to your computer. This is important, even if you only have a single computer on your network, as it will prevent mysterious failures in the future There is nothing in DHCP that guarantees that a particular computer is going to get the same address, even if it is the only computer on the network, or that the IP addresses will be assigned in a particular order. Using a dynamic IP address may work for now, but I can guarantee that at some point in the future you'll be scratching your head wondering why you can't host races anymore.

The first step is to open the Local Area Connection properties dialog box. There are at least two ways to get to this dialog.

1. Right click on the "My Network Places" icon on your desktop ("My Network Neighborhood" for pre-XP versions of Windows).
2. Select properties.
3. Right click on the "Local Area Connection" icon. This might also be named something like "Local Area Connection 2", "Local Area Connection 3" etc.
4. Select Properties.

You can also get to the dialog via the Control Panel

1. Open the control panel
2. Double click the "Network Connections" icon.
3. Right click on the Local Area Connection and select properties.

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1. Once you've found the dialog select "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)".
2. And click the properties button.

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1. Assign a static IP address to the computer. Here I've used 192.168.1.20 as the static IP address. It doesn't really matter what address you use just don't use an address assigned to another computer or device on your network. Also make sure you assign a static IP address outside the range of addresses used by your DHCP server.
2. Add the local IP address of your router as your computer's default gateway.
3. Select "Use the following DNS servers" and enter the DNS servers you recorded from your router's status page.

It's likely a good idea to reboot your computer at this point. If your IP address has changed the router and other computers on the network may be a little confused at this point.

4. Open Some Ports

Now we have to head back to the router to open the ports for VSK to use.

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1. The is the port forwarding page on the router. On my router I have to click the orange "Advanced" tab in the upper right corner (which changes to Setup as shown in this screen shot).
2. The name under "Customized Applications" is ignored by the router. It is just a label so you can remember what application you opened the port for.
3. Enter the range of ports that you want to open. Since VSK only used one port the from and to values are the same. By default this is port 2350, but it can be changed in VSK.
4. Enable both TCP and UDP traffic on that port.
5. Enter the static IP address you assigned to your computer.

You should now be able to host races in VSK!

6. ZoneAlarm Pro

You should be able to host races, but if you are running later versions of ZoneAlarm Pro you may have people telling you that they're getting a warning message that VSK could not make a UDP connection and is falling back to TCP. While the game will still work, and you'll still be able to host, TCP is a bit laggier than UDP, so you'll want to fix this. If you're not using ZAP but people are still telling you about the UDP/TCP warning message the problem is similar. You just need to figure out where in the firewall you need to go to enable UDP ports.

Double click the ZoneAlarm icon in the task bar to open the ZoneAlarm Pro window.

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1. Select "Firewall" from the menu on the left.
2. Click the "Customize" button.

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1. Scroll down to you see the option "Allow incoming UDP ports".
2. For ports add 2350 (or whatever value you set in VSK above).

Now you should really be ready to host races in VSK3.

Windows Firewall and ICS

The Windows Firewall

I do not use the Windows Firewall and haven't had a chance to test these settings. However, this is what I suggest. If you are also using ICS I suggest you read that section before performing these steps as you will use different port numbers if you have more than one computer.

1. Open the Control Panel and double click on the Windows Firewall icon.
2. Go to the Exceptions Tab.
3. Click the Add Program... button and then the Browse button. Locate the VSK3.exe file, select it, and click ok. Note: you can't select VSK3 from the list of programs because that gives VSK3Launcher.exe access to the internet, while it is VSK3.exe that actually requires access.
4. Click the Add Port button, enter "VSK TCP" as the name, 2350 as the port number, (leave the TCP button selected) and click OK.
5. Click the Add Port button, enter "VSK UDP" as the name, 2350 as the port number, select the UDP button, and click OK.
6. Go to the Advanced Tab and click the ICMP Settings button.
7. Add a checkmark to "Allow incoming echo requests" and click ok.
8. Click Ok to close the Windows Firewall dialog.

You should be able to play VSK4 and host races.

Internet Connection Sharing

I do not use ICS and haven't had a chance to test these settings (in fact I can't since I've only got one NIC in this computer...). However, this is what I would do...

Each computer that you want to host races on will also need to have a static IP address assigned to it. The computer running ICS will have two network cards, only assign a static IP address to the network card that is connected to the other computers (the local card). The network card that is connected to the internet should have an IP address assigned by your ISP. The local card on computer running ICS should use your ISP's address as the default gateway, and the other computers should use the static IP address of the ICS computer as their default gateway.

Once you have the IP addresses assigned try the following:

1. Open the Control Panel and click on the Windows Firewall icon.
2. Go to the Advanced tab.
3. Select your Local Area Connection and click the Settings button.
4. Click the Add button and enter the following information:
1. Description of Service: VSK (computer name) TCP. For example "VSK Kirk TCP" (Kirk is the name of my desktop computer).
2. Name or IP address: the static IP address of the machine hosting races.
3. External Port: 2350
4. Internal Port : 2350
5. Leave the TCP button selected
6. Click Ok
5. Repeat step 4 with the description "VSK (computer name) UDP" and check the UDP button. Use the same IP address and port number as in step 4.

It is likely a good idea to start with the machine that is running ICS and get it working first. Then add one machine at a time. If you do get it working let me know so I can update this section.