In order to stay on-topic, I'll reply only to the relevant part...
I know the router sends ICMP destination unreachable (with various subsets) packets for that purpose, but that was never a part of my point. (...) You have taken this thread completely off topic, (...) In fact, I don't see anywhere that you've attempted to actually help.
I'm going to have to quote your earlier post then....
It is not part of the IRC protocol to send an ICMP packet for any reason. You should be able to block all ICMP packets and have no connectivity issues to an IRC server as a result.
was
exactly what I replied to. So if you really think all this was off-topic, lets summarize... Raccoon made a suggestion that blocking ICMP could be the cause of TCP connections still being open where they should have been closed. You replied with the statement quoted above, supposedly proving Raccoon wrong, and throwing a possible solution out of the window for the OP. I indicated that your statement was flawed, since routers use ICMP to report about broken links. Despite your stream of words, nowhere have I seen an argument from you that contradicts this. So much for on-topic replies huh?
I'll be happy to discuss all your other points with you (especially regarding the general concept "router" as opposed to the feature list of your SOHO natbox), but not here.
