Users should be allowed to set the port range that mIRC uses to a port below 1024. What were you thinking when you restricted it to only 1024 and higher? Some people have port restrictions from their ISP and can only have incoming connections on certain ports which may not fall in the 1024+ range.

I'm pretty sure that in previous versions of mIRC, the restrictions forcing it to be port 1024 and higher were not in place. I'm aware how basically ports lower than 1024 should be reserved for certain services and how many systems such as Linux based systems don't even allow regular users to use ports lower than 1024 without access, but I really think you should at least let users set it to a port lower than 1024 if we really want.

"I'm pretty sure that in previous versions of mIRC, the restrictions forcing it to be port 1024 and higher were not in place."

Did you check this? If not, don't make such a bold statement out of thin air. It's more logical to assume the restriction has always been there than to assume it has not. Not without knowing of a good reason why would it have been changed.

I was curious about this one, as I have the faintest memory of setting my DCC Ports to 80/80 in order to defeat someone's corporate firewall restrictions. I can't really tell if this is some drug induced memory due to the volume of Nyquil and Theraflu I have consumed in the past 48 hours, so I did the research myself.

I already have every version of mIRC from 2.1a to current installed just for this reason, and now "Myth Busters mIRC" will determine if Toad's recollection is as accurate as he hopes.

Starting from mIRC v6.12 and working back, I went into the DCC > Options dialog and configured the High and Low port ranges to both equal 80. I ended up testing back 22 versions to mIRC v5.3 released December 13, 1997, as this is the first version to add a user-definable port range in the DCC options.

The results... when we return, in a moment.

And welcome back to "Myth Busters mIRC".

We told you of the legend of the DCC port restriction, believed to have once allowed users to specify port ranges reaching below 1024. Our team of drug induced braincells have worked to crack this myth, and here is what they found.

Values such as 80/80 1/1024 and 21/5000 were placed in the respective fields. In each of the tested versions, mIRC would reset the DCC port range to the default value of 1024/5000 whenever either of these fields were less-than 1024.

MYTH BUSTED.

A special thanks to Vicks Nyquil® and Theraflu® for making this hallucination possible. Good night.

- Raccoon

Indulge me - I got a headache going on -- in english this means I was right, right?

Sorry, my reply wasn't to you specifically... and you can't really be right or wrong since you didn't really lean either way, you just told him not to make assumptions.

In short, No. He never could set ports lower than 1024.
This restriction has always existed.

Ok, I just checked it out and yes, you guys are right. I thought I remembered being able to do it once in the past just like you said Raccoon (or perhaps I tried setting it, but never realized mIRC automatically changed it back since it doesn't give any warning messages)... but the reason I am posting this is because I think the port restrictions should be removed. I don't see any need for them. I've tried some memory modifications to mIRC to force it to use a port lower than 1024, and tested it and it worked fine. Obviouslly there's no technical problems with using ports lower than 1024. I don't see why this restriction is there. Even Raccoon wrote above that he wanted to change it to a port lower than 1024 at one time. I think users should be able to use a port lower than 1024 if we really want.

Actually I did, maybe not too explicit. In my comments I made it obvious (or at least I thought I did) I thought it his claim was nonsense...

I think you're right.

But there should be a warning letting people know that mIRC may not work on ports under 1024 on a secured computer or linux OS if they lack the privilages to do so.

I guess you haven't checked any port listings lately?
The majority of ports below 1024 (oh hell, almost every port below it, and quite a few above it) are reserved for use for specific programs. However, thats not to say you have to use those ports.

I can think of one good reason not to use ports below 1024.
Whilst the specific ports aren't secure, ports above 1024 are generally not actually used for specific purposes.

Well, there are a few reasons one might temporarily wish to use ports below 1024.

The most obvious is for a sender to circomvent a receiver's firewall restrictions... ie, office computers that can only access port 80 of any internet host. Temporarily setting your DCC Send port to 80 would allow this user to "get" from you. (IRCing from work can be difficult at times

There may also be other, more legitimate reasons to doing this.

- Raccoon

Todd, there is really no point to posting the same thing in 3 different forums. Your other posts said the exact same thing and were deleted. Had you made any new point, i would have copied it here.

- Khaled and most ppl read all the forums

- replying to the same issue on multiple threads creates
confusion and wastes time as ppl bounce between them to see who said what where so they dont repeat themselves

- posting it to an unrelated thread doesnt help the ppl searching that thread for answers to a specific problem and discourages using the search feature

- you are requesting a feature/change, this is the appropriate forum for that

Considering that mIRC is made only for Windows, there shouldn't be any issues with not having the privliges to run it under Linux. Even if it was emulated under Linux, I assume trying to listen on a port lower than 1024 without privliges would result in an failure to create the socket, and mIRC would already have builtin error handling for that and give an error message or try another port.

Most people won't even change the values there unless they know what they're doing. I'm not saying the default values of 1024 and 5000 should be changed, I'm just saying that we should be allowed to set a value lower than 1024 if we really want. A warning message would be a good idea if you really want to make sure people who don't know what they're doing are notified.

Yes, like I said in my first post, I'm aware that ports below 1024 are generally reserved for specific services. But also, just about all ports from 1024 - 5000 are also reserved and registered with IANA for specific uses also - http://www.iana.org/assignments/port-numbers. Like I said in my previous post, I'm not saying that we should change the default values 1024 and 5000, I'm just saying that users should be allowed to enter a value lower than 1024 if we really want. If the main concern is that mIRC would be involved in port conflicts, then like BoredNL said, a warning could always be issued if the user attempts to change it to a port lower than 1024.


Sorry about that. It's just that this topic is moving further and further down, and posting a reply doesn't bump it up to the top. I also haven't really seen any official replies such as from Khaled or any mods, and it looks like this issue is getting hopeless.

No, that's just how the feature suggestions forum works.

You make your suggestion, others offer their opinions, you follow up, and the thread dies.

Ideally, somewhere along those 3 steps Khaled will read and quietly consider your suggestion... but due to pass demands and disappointment from users accusing Khaled of promising their feature, he has opted to lurk silently in the shadows.

Who knows, he may even be one of us!

"It's just that this topic is moving further and further down, and posting a reply doesn't bump it up to the top. I also haven't really seen any official replies such as from Khaled or any mods, and it looks like this issue is getting hopeless. "

Most ppl here set it so that it shows active threads, so that regardless of how old a thread is, any activity on it essentially keeps it "at the top".

Ppl make feature suggestions, others add their input on it, Khaled reads them all. Since Khaled is the only one who makes that kind of decision and implements it or not, there really isnt any reply a mod could make other than to agree/disagree and assure you that Khaled does indeed read these forums. He very very very rarely comments that something will "be fixed next version" or that something is on his list to implement (or where on that list) or posts a reason why something isnt under consideration. He simply doesnt make announcements in advance of any features/changes. Lack of a reply from him or a moderator doesnt indicate in any way whether this is under consideration or not.

Woah... I can actually set the DCC port to lower than 1024 in the new 6.14 if I want to! Thank you! I love it! mIRC is the best!

Locutus needs to stop trying to undermine people's questions if he/she just can't provide an answer. I happen to know that in older versions there were not these identical restrictions, so if the poster was being restricted in the version he had at the time of the original post, then his assumptions were basically correct. I don't think his question should be so quickly invalidated just because he made one assumption based on his own recollection (which in this case was correct). Sometimes I feel the need to post after Locutus just so people still recognize the person's problem as legitimate, instead of a debunked screw-up on the part of the poster.

I happen to know that in older versions there were not these identical restrictions, so if the poster was being restricted in the version he had at the time of the original post, then his assumptions were basically correct.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say in your post... but this statement is inaccurate. If you had read my post earlier in this thread, you would have noticed that I tediously tested each-and-every prior version, and came to the conclusion that mIRC always had this restriction.

mIRC v6.14 is the FIRST version of mIRC to allow DCC port values less-than 1024.
[color:999999]{ insert the "raccoon says so" official seal here }[/color]

- Raccoon

but I really think you should at least let users set it to a port lower than 1024 if we really want.

Change to a better ISP.

Having said that I can't understand why they'd block ports above 1024, though I do know of ISP's that block ports BELOW it, such as 23, 25 and 80 to stop their subscribers running servers, or at least trying to stop them.