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We encountered some problems connecting to a SmartFox server when calling from behind a SPI firewall (Statefull Package Inspection). First we thought it was because the firewall checks the traffic and might recognize it as NON-HTTP, because we tried using the port 80 for connection (for strict firewalls that block connections on ports other than 80).

In some cases it works with port 80, but in some cases not (probably firewall, because turning the SPI firewall off at the router on a network with problems solved the problem). Now we set the default port (9339) for the server and the problems continues. So the problem does not seem to be non-http traffic.

Is it known that SPI firewalls have trouble with smartfox communication? Simply turning SPI off is not an option, becuase many routers have this firewall enabled by default (Netgear) and some major ISP's in the netherlands provide such routers with the subscriptions...

So can anyone help me?

Hi,
personally I am not familiar with SPI firewalls, anyways there are can be different conditions in which the socket connection might be affected.
What is the firewall supposed to do on a non well-known port? (> 1024)

Now we set the default port (9339) for the server and the problems continues

Stupid question: after changing the port did you restart the server?

Another question, did you try telnetting the server on its port just to see if it's reachable?
If your SFS is available publicly you can send us your address (with a PM if you prefer) and we can check remotely

The specification of SPI firewalls says that ports above 1024 are allowed. The used router does NOT have other security restrictions for ports.

Telnetting to the server did not give any results. But now it seemed that the server was still listening to the wrong port. (i was testing at home, and the server is running at the office).

The server is supposed to listen to the correct port now (but i can test this only at home)

The problem is solved. The connection problem at the 9339 port is because the sys.admin did not forward the ports correctly.

Maybe you can place in the documentation a warning that ports below 1024 are reserved and therefore may cause problems with certain firewalls...

great