Looking to get off Relay Connection

[Muther]

First post, so first let me say I LOVE THIS PROGRAM. It is wonderful when someone creates something you didn't know you needed, but needed SO BADLY. Thank you! No more encrypted zip files passing slowly through my dropbox.

I sent my friend a secret and a link to install BT Sync. He is running XP-32 SP3 on his home network. He definitely has nothing fancy going on over there, just basic router set up. He did fine installing and joining the share folder, yet I noticed under the devices tab that his device has a cloud symbol next to it. After looking it up, I learned that means we are sharing a relay connection.

I feel like the connection is slower, but I don't really have much to compare it to as I have mostly been transferring on the LAN or smaller folders to other direct connections. Is it? Is it something to care about?

All my other shares have direct connections, so I had him teamviewer me in to have a look. All looked in order. His firewall has exeptions for BT, file sharing is on, Upnp is on. I even went so far as to open the specific port his version is listening on for UDP and TCP. No dice.

I've search the forum, FAQs, and user guide for more ideas, but can't figure out what I might have missed. Probably something stupid. Maybe its not a big deal, as it is working fine. Maybe it would be faster...? Maybe I just let it be... ?

Any ideas?

[Harold Feit]

The easiest way to get off of the relay connection is to forward and make exceptions specifically for sync.

Also, it WILL work better if the listen port is open on both sides.

Additionally, some routers' SPI firewalls cause major slowdowns and even outright block traffic by bittorrent products and should be turned off)

[Automatic Coding]

The easiest way to get off of the relay connection is to forward and make exceptions specifically for sync.

Also, it WILL work better if the listen port is open on both sides.

Additionally, some routers' SPI firewalls cause major slowdowns and even outright block traffic by bittorrent products and should be turned off)

Question:- If only one side is forwarded (Assuming they're both behind NATs), will the non-forwarded side realize and connect to the forwarded side without a relay?

@OP, Are you sure it's port forwarded? Get your friend to run something like:-

nc -lu 1234

and then you run:-

echo "Hi" | nc -u 127.0.0.1 1234

Replace 1234 with the BTSync port of the other computer and 127.0.0.1 with the other member's IP. You should see "Hi" appear in the first one's CLI, if you don't, there's something that's not forwarding correctly, my guess is the router (As that's the most common thing), although, could be anything.

Here's what you should have in your router:-

 1 ;;; BitTorrentSync
chain=dstnat action=dst-nat to-addresses=$lanIPOfBitTorrentSyncComputer to-ports=$portNumber
protocol=tcp in-interface=ether10 dst-port=$portNumber

2 ;;; BitTorrentSync
chain=dstnat action=dst-nat to-addresses=$lanIPOfBitTorrentSyncComputer to-ports=$portNumber
protocol=udp in-interface=ether10 dst-port=$portNumber

[Harold Feit]

Question:- If only one side is forwarded (Assuming they're both behind NATs), will the non-forwarded side realize and connect to the forwarded side without a relay?

It doesn't appear to at this time based on my tcpview check.

You may be able to force things by turning off discovery and using dynamic dns hostnames to attempt to exclude the cloud relay function, but I make no promises as to the effectiveness of that.

Port forwarding on both ends and making sure everything is properly internet reachable is still ideal.

[Automatic Coding]

Port forwarding on both ends and making sure everything is properly internet reachable is still ideal.

I currently do have that set up, I was just wondering in case I ever need to use it in a public location where UPnP isn't enabled & I don't have access to the SSH/WEB/TELNET interface.

[Muther]

Thank you for the responses. He has gone to bed, but I will try these ideas tomorrow afternoon and let you know.

[kos13]

Question:- If only one side is forwarded (Assuming they're both behind NATs), will the non-forwarded side realize and connect to the forwarded side without a relay?

Yes, if you have at least one side with port forwarding, Sync will establish direct connection.

[phktgmis]

I'm interested in knowing what this nc utility is.

[GreatMarko]

I'm interested in knowing what this nc utility is.

nc = Netcat (a unix utility that reads and writes data across network connections, using TCP or UDP protocol)