TCP/IP Half open limit - Help with this stuff please

[xuerebx]

I was searching for BS player (a music program sort of like windows media player, but better), and after I got it and downloaded it (which was only 5kB!) I ran the program and it obviously couldn't load up. I did some research and found out I needed this bitcomet thing. Anyway, I downloaded bitcomet and then I could run that file. In bitcomet, before that file started downloading (Seems to be the original file I downloaded was not the actual BS player) I got a message saying that I needed to configure my TCP/IP Half-Open Limit. I downloaded a patch which everyone was saying was needed. But now after I was reading some other reviews, it's said that this patch is not needed, and things are actually better without it.

I got this patch from here: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2005/11/15/windows-xp-sp2-tcp-connection-limit-event-id-4226/

And this is the review which said it wasn't needed: http://forums.bitcomet.com/lofiversion/index.php?t984.html

Has anyone used this patch before? Is it needed? Or is this just bull.

Man if this is really bull, than I must find a way to undo this patch thing!

 

[Rabidfox]

Never used it, but I know the concepts. It's also called an embryonic connection. There should be no problem's setting it to 300 or so. Setting it absurdly high can be considered a security concern, but this just limits the amount of TCP connections you can request. This might have been done to prevent you or a runaway program from attempting to DOS somebody by opening a hojillion fake tcp sessions and hosing their machine. Or, like the article said, it'll slow the spread of worms.

You should be fine with that patch and I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[Nenu]

Half open connections are used temporarily to make connections.
Once the connection is fully established the half open connection is released.
If torrents are too slow to start, having more half open connections will enable them to get going quicker but it wont affect the number of connections you can make.
Your router may have a relatively low maximum number of full connections it can handle. Mine is around 250 so i set my torrent client to 200 full connections max.
If the max full connections is exceeded, you will effectively lose the ability to use the internet for anything else.
The full connections can also get tied up by the router, a reboot of the router fixes this.

If all the half open connections are constantly in use as can occur when downloading a torrent, you may have trouble browsing the web for example as the browser is competing with your torrent client for the half open connections.
To fix this, increase the number of half open connections but dont increase the number that the torrent client can use.
This will leave some half open connections ready for you to use for all your other internet needs.

Make sure that the upload speed of the torrent client is less than your maximum (say 80%) otherwise your connection can choke and no number of half open connections will help that.
It can stifle torrent downloading too.