Vista IP Blocking: PeerGuardian Alternative
Edited Jan 15, 2008: There is a way to load your IP Filter with blocklist manager straight into Azureus without the Safepeer plugin with the latest version of Azureus. Simply export your blocklist manager’s IP addresses into a text file using Peerguardian export settings (shown in the tutorial), then point Azureus to that file location by heading over to Tools->Options->IP Filters->Auto Loading.
There are many great things about Vista, but compatibility isn’t really one of them. Especially if you’re running on a 64 bit environment using Vista. The nature of this post, of course, is the alternative to PeerGuardian, a popular IP blocking program, for Windows Vista. Now if you’re running anything below Vista (98/XP/etc), you may want to give PeerGuardian a shot, as it does an excellent job at blocking mostly all potential “online predators French Monkeys”. Nothing against France, everything against those darn French Monkeys. Anywho, PeerGuardian is an excellent choice unless:
- You are using Windows Vista. Especially the 64-bit version. While you can get away with using PeerGuardian RC2 on Vista, it will behave very unpredictably. What I mean is, it has a lot of trouble starting up sometimes when it has cache problems with local lists. It sometimes hangs, and more often than not slows down your system. And for the 64 bit environment, you’ll have to go to more lengths of installing a driver which isn’t digitally signed, which more often than not doesn’t work. Either way, RC2 is the only version that will work for Vista (to block out IPv6 addy’s), any other version just doesn’t quite do the job.
- You don’t like the idea of having your entire system being blocked from those outside forces, whether they be French Monkeys or spammers. You just want a specific program, like a bittorent client, to not be disrupted by intruders.
- You want to try this out, just to see if it works, because you’re like that. I don’t know why you’re like that, but that isn’t any of my concern.
So, what tools will you need? I’ll be working specifically with the Azureus bittorent client, but this can be anything with IP blocking capabilities (in fact, here’s the tutorial to use for uTorrent). Here’s the list of things you’ll need to download:
- Azureus
- Azureus SafePeer Plugin (not required with later versions of Azureus, since they have an IP Filter option)
- BlockList Manager (I prefer this method of updating the IP filters)
So, after you get Azureus, install and configure it to your needs (the connections, network settings, etc). Afterwards, install the SafePeer plugin (again, if you got the latest version of Azureus, you don’t need this; otherwise details on how to install should be found in the archive with the plugin download). Lastly, install the BlockList Manager.
Start up Azureus, and navigate your way to Plugins->Safepeer (if installed).
- Make sure you have Enable SafePeer checked
- Uncheck Enable Blocklist Manager
- For the Cache file, simply type in blocklist.cache. Do not make this an absolute path (C:\etc), because as of version 2.5.1 of SafePeer, it removes the slashes which further complicates things.
Then, go to the Blocklist tab:
- Set the Cache file to be blocklist.cache. Again, as in the last step, make sure that it is all you enter.
Close and shutdown Azureus (the little bugger likes to stick around in the taskbar). Go ahead and open up Blocklist Manager:
Click on the Sources button. It should download the latest available source file locations (not the actual IP lists themselves, as they will come later).
Now go to Tools->Options (Ctrl+O). Head on into the Sources option on the left. You should see something like this:
Enable all the sources as you see fit. Just remember, this blog is on an “Edu Range”
NOTICE: These steps are applicable only for Blocklist Manager v2.6.5. The steps for the newest version (2.7.7) can be found below this.
v2.6.5
Now, go to the App Locations option on the left.
For SafePeer: Check the box for SafePeer and point it to your blocklist.cache file. For Vista, this should be something like “C:\Users\Your Name\AppData\Roaming\Azureus\plugins\safepeer\blocklist.cache”. For XP and below, it should be in “C:\Documents and Settings\Your Name\AppData\Azureus\plugins\safepeer\blocklist.cache”. If you are having trouble finding it, you can also type in %APPDATA% into any open explorer window.
Then, go to the Selected Filters option on the left and check SafePeer.
Non SafePeer: Check the box for PeerGuardian and point it to any text file (it doesn’t have to exist at this point). Make sure to remember this file location and make sure that this file location will always be accessible to Azureus (meaning if it is on an external hard drive, for instance, make sure the hard drive is always connected when you start up Azureus).
Then, go to the Selected Filters option on the left and check PeerGuardian.
v2.7.7
In the main screen of Blocklist Manager, click on the Export tab and select Export Manager. Here you can add the location to which you will be exporting your IP filter list to (in this case, to Safepeer’s blocklist.cache).
SafePeer: Simply type in any name into the name field, change the format to Safepeer, and type in the location of your Safepeer blocklist.cache file. For Vista, this should be something like “C:\Users\Your Name\AppData\Roaming\Azureus\plugins\safepeer\blocklist.cache”. For XP and below, it should be in “C:\Documents and Settings\Your Name\AppData\Azureus\plugins\safepeer\blocklist.cache”. If you are having trouble finding it, you can also type in %APPDATA% into any open explorer window.
Non SafePeer: Type in any name into the name field, change the format to Peerguardian, and type in any location of any text file that you wish to store the IP filter data in. Make sure to remember this file location and make sure that this file location will always be accessible to Azureus (meaning if it is on an external hard drive, for instance, make sure the hard drive is always connected when you start up Azureus).
Put a check by Export Location Active and the click Add to add the export setting. The setting should be added with an enabled status.
All versions
Save your settings and you’ll be back at the main Blocklist Manager screen. Click on the Process button.
This will automatically begin downloading the sources and processing the lists. It will check for dupes and overlapping IP’s as well.
Once done, simply click on the Export button (make sure you have Azureus fully closed), it will ask you if you want to overwrite. Say yes, it will convert the list, and save it to the blocklist. You can now close the Blocklist Manager (although you will still want to just process the lists and export them every week or so to keep up to date).
Open up Azureus, navigate to Tools->Options and click on IP Filters on the left hand side. You should now have a list of bad IP’s along with others in the list:
If you see the list, then you’re all set.
Edited on Nov 22, 2007 – Added guide for the new version of Blocklist Manager (2.7.7).
November 21st, 2007 at 11:21 pm
yeah, i got a question…
when i am in the blocklist manager part in the option and i select the sources, it doesn’t update them, also, when it says “Now, go to the “App Locations” option on the left”, there is no option on the left for me…
please help
November 22nd, 2007 at 12:11 am
The “App Locations” option (more or less a selection) should be a couple options below the “Sources” option (again, this is all in the Tools->Option area). Before you can see any sources, you need to make sure you update your sources list (hit on the sources button). If you have them all updated, it should say something like “Source update complete. 0 new sources, 0 removed sources.”
It’s a strange program to get used to (in terms of conventional usage), so that’s exactly why I wrote a little tutorial about it, hopefully it’ll help others out a bit
.
-Alex
November 22nd, 2007 at 12:28 am
ok thankyou, but for some strange reason when I go into the options menu, it only gives me the choices of -General,Sources,Personal Sources-…
the other options such as Apps locations, Log locations, and Selected Filters are not in the options menu.
I have no idea why this is happening, I have previously tried doing this in the past through another guide, but I failed to set up the azureus part correctly.
your guide describes what to do perfectly, but for some strange reason my secong time around is different from the first time because I had those settings in my options. If you have anymore info. for me i would greatly appreciate it.
November 22nd, 2007 at 12:33 am
wow, i just realized that this is sucking up almost 120,000k of memory, when this entire process is complete, does this still take that much up?
Also, do you only open the program when you are browsing the web for torrents or downloading them, or do you basically let it run all the time?
November 22nd, 2007 at 1:12 am
what happen to my last 2 comments?
November 22nd, 2007 at 1:12 am
oh, never mind
November 22nd, 2007 at 1:14 am
ok, well i just checked and my it isn’t sucking up as much memory now (1200k)
November 22nd, 2007 at 9:30 am
well, Im back again, what I think i am going to do, since I previously stated that I had tried this in the past, is uninstall the blocklist program, then make sure that all the files are gone under C=>ProgramFiles, the reinstall it.
November 22nd, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Well, once you run blocklist manager and export the IP’s to the cache, you can then close the program as SafePeer will take care of the rest (in terms of downloading things in Azureus). The IP filtering will only affect Azureus, as mentioned, and so it will have no effect upon general internet browsing (searching for torrents and the like, unless its within Azureus).
I’m not sure why those options aren’t visible to you…what version of blocklist manager are you using? I still don’t get why you can’t see the other three options, as they are right below the other ones.
Here’s a screenshot of what the options menu should look like:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v45/realitymaniac/665089d7.png
Otherwise, my best guess would be to try reinstalling the program, seeing as maybe something went awry with the program.
-Alex
November 22nd, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Oh, I just realized, they do have a new version out that may have changed some things around. I’m checking it out now (I used to have 2.6.5).
-Alex
November 22nd, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Alright, I’ve updated the guide to the newest version of Blocklist Manager. Should be the same steps up to the exporting, and then it changes just for a few steps.
In retrospect, I think the people behind Blocklist Manager did a good thing by changing the way they had things because now you can completely manage what filters you want updated, where you want them updated, and how many instances of those things you need updated to be updated (like if you’re running multiple instances of Azureus with other accounts).
-Alex
November 22nd, 2007 at 7:59 pm
ok, I uninstalled blocklist manager completely as well as going into program files and deleting the remaining folders. anywho, when i reinstalled it, i checked the options list again and sure enough the other options were now there. I don’t no why they weren’t there in the first thing but all that matter now is that they are so I am going to go through the steps again and hopefully every thing works out (I’ll reply again when I find everything out). Aside from that though, I still dont
November 22nd, 2007 at 8:05 pm
(oops)… (continued)…
quite understand the function of the program. So does it just block bad IP’s while I am downloading torents through azureus, or does it protect my entire computer in for example Limewire while it is open? Another thing is, aren’t I in just as much of a threat while I am browsing through torrent websites let alone just downloading them. And is this method of P2P protection just as good as Peerguardian 2 since that it is not compatible with vista?
thanks
November 22nd, 2007 at 10:53 pm
thankyou very much, I now have finally successfully got everything working perfectly now. I just have a few more questions…
1. does the blocklist manager update automatically in azureus, or do i have to open the program alone and manually update it, if so how?
2. now when i have azureus open, does this drastically slow down my internet?
3. I think i asked this earlier, but is this just as good as using a program like peerguardian 2 to block bad IP’s?
Anyway, thanks for all the help cheers for the excellent guide..
even though someone stupid as me still managed to get confused.
November 23rd, 2007 at 12:06 am
Glad you got things working
.
To answer your other questions – it only protects downloads in Azureus, not in LimeWire or any other program. Programs like PeerGuardian would have protected all open ports (and 80 if you wanted to have it do that), but sadly it doesn’t work for Vista quite right yet.
Azureus will only slow down your internet if you let it have a lot of bandwidth – and you can change the bandwidth settings in the Azureus options. You can also do other things to customize and make Azureus perform better. Most of this info can be found at the Azureus Wiki.
For updating your lists, you do have to do it manually with Blocklist manager. Simply open up Blocklist manager again, hit process (this will download the bad IP’s and merge them again) and then hit export. Again, you really only need to do this once a week if that; most of the IP’s are the same the second time around anyways.
“Another thing is, aren’t I in just as much of a threat while I am browsing through torrent websites let alone just downloading them”
Browsing torrent sites is completely legal, by law (in the United States). There is no risk of downloading torrents that are hosted by reputable torrent sites: PirateBay, IsoHunt, MiniNova to name a few. Hosting torrents is iffy in the US (at least tracking the torrents in the case of isoHunt). Downloading the torrent files themselves is not illegal, as the torrent files are not copyrighted in any way. What the torrent files point to (in the case of trackers and other files you can choose to download) and the act of downloading those said files that a torrent points to is illegal only if it is copyrighted material (in the United States again), thus the IP blocks on companies such as MediaSentry, MPAA, RIAA, and others associated with those (so they can’t track you or send you false data on those torrents, as they love to do). And even though I agree with how an artist should get paid for making music or a movie producer should get the money for their hard work, I do not agree with how companies such as these are polluting the internet with their fake data that they’re sending out in the name of preserving corporate interests. That’s just me ranting again, though…
Torrent files that point to legal download files (like Linux distributions, freeware, etc) are legal, of course to use in terms of downloading. And frankly, if a site offers a torrent file as a means of download, I always use it because the speeds of getting files from multiple computers always seems faster than getting it from one server.
-Alex
November 23rd, 2007 at 12:12 am
alright, that pretty much sums it all up. Thanks again for helping me out so much!
David
November 26th, 2007 at 6:15 am
Hello Alex,
Question sir. I have installed Safepeer and Blocklist Manager. Installed SP for ALL users. Everything appears to have installed correctly. HOWEVER, when I look under plugins in Azuress, there is no Safepeer to click on to get to the menu and instructions you describe above.
> * Make sure you have Enable SafePeer checked
> * Uncheck Enable Blocklist Manager
> * For the Cache file, simply type in blocklist.cache. Do not make this an >absolute path (C:\etc), because as of version 2.5.1 of SafePeer, it removes the >slashes which further complicates things.
I am under the “Advanced” menu of Azureus.
Am I looking ion the wrong place? Is there a way to see if Safepeer is operating properly?
Thank you for this page and all your help and info.
Hal
November 26th, 2007 at 8:42 am
Well, the way you can check if SafePeer is actually working is to look at the IP filters (Tools->Options->IP Filters) and see if there are any entries there that weren’t entered manually by you (or through other IP blocking rules in Azureus). The list should be blank if SafePeer isn’t working (this is after you run the Blocklist Manager on the cache file as well).
Also, make sure you’re checking in the right place – under the Plugins tab near the top (next to the Tools and Help tab), since this is the only place you can access those options.
Now that I think about it too, make sure you’re pointing the location of the cache file in Blocklist Manager to the right place, since if you install the plugin for all users, it should be in a different directory than the %APPDATA%/Azureues/plugins folder.
Hope that helps.
-Alex
November 26th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Could I be using a different version or something? I am very confused. I am using Azureus 3.0.3.4 Maybe I am not running it in the correct mode. As far as I can tell the everything is blank. I see Safepeer when I got Tools>Options>Plugins, but nowhere else.
Ugh.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!
Hal
November 26th, 2007 at 10:52 am
btw, Tools>Options>IP Filters does not show any lists.
November 26th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
I’m using Azureus 3.0.3.4, but I only have it set so that only I can use safepeer right now; I’m not sure how you installed it to work for all users, but that may be the problem. Try putting the SafePeer files into each users’ %APPDATA%/Azureus/plugins/safepeer folder and then linking up each of the caches (with the latest version of Blocklist Manager).
If doing the individual installations, you’ll have to run Azureus under each account to change the config settings (alternatively, you could just do this once and then copy the updated safepeer.properties, blocklist.properties, and plugin.properties files to all the other folders). And make sure to point Blocklist Manager to all of the affected users’ blocklist.cache file (since in the new version of Blocklist Manager, you can update multiple instances of lists).
-Alex
November 26th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
when i update blocklist manager, why does it go through the entire process again of getting all the IPs? and do i select the process button or the sources button.. then extract? does this actually do any good?
November 26th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Well, the IP’s are located into several lists, spanning ranges of government IP’s to spammer IP’s to the Anti-P2P organizations that like to sue people. Each one has their own set list. The updating process can be done by just clicking the process button and then exporting the processed list to the cache file (although you could hit the sources button to see if there are any new source files, but there rarely ever is).
“why does it go through the entire process again of getting all the IPs?”
Because the IP’s are located each in their own list, as stated above, you have to get the lists each time to update your filters. Yeah, this is quite tedious, I agree, but you’d pretty much be doing the same thing with peerguardian (as it uses some of the same lists).
Again, you really don’t have to update that often if you don’t want to as doing so will only add a few occasional IP’s every now and then – running it once will usually suffice even for a range of a couple of months.
-Alex
November 27th, 2007 at 5:19 am
Hey Alex, thanks for your help. I appreciate it.
You said: “Try putting the SafePeer files into each users’ %APPDATA%/Azureus/plugins/safepeer folder and then linking up each of the caches (with the latest version of Blocklist Manager).”
I just looked in this folder. It is empty. Any idea what I am doing wrong? When I installed Safepeer everything APPREARED to go smoothly. It is the .JAR file we are looking for, correct?
I am going to UNINSTALL and try again.
Hal
November 27th, 2007 at 8:48 am
Well, if its empty (the jar executable isn’t there), then try moving the plugin files from the zip file you downloaded into that directory. Here’s a screenshot of the zip file you should have downloaded of safepeer along with the plugin folder of Azureus:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v45/realitymaniac/265c36d5.png
So that’s what it should look like, as described in the readme.txt of the SafePeer plugin. The blocklist.cache file should be generated once you start Azureus with SafePeer.
Just a question, but where did you put the files initially for SafePeer (or how exactly did you install SafePeer)?
-Alex
November 27th, 2007 at 9:45 am
hey, i have yet another question.
what does it mean when i go into tools>IP filters in azureus, and it is showing that it has blocked IP’s but in the part underneath that it shows that some were banned and that some have sent bad data (some even say occurrences=and a # like 3). Is this bad??
November 27th, 2007 at 11:16 am
The blocked IP’s (with bad occurrences and such) are IP’s that Azureus “adapted” to block. Bascially when downloading pieces of the files, sometimes the person who is seeding sends you bad data that doesn’t match up against a hash. If they do it enough times, Azureus decides they are not worth downloading from and bans them (this happens in other bittorent clients like uTorrent as well). These lists are not usually permanent and get reset with the next restart of Azureus. You can change the settings for banning peers under Options->Tools->IP Filters in the Peer Blocking section (though my recommendations are to leave it be).
-Alex
November 27th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
ok thanks
November 27th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
well…
for some reason i am getting this when i hit process for update now…
Ready.
Opening source list…
Source list loaded.
Getting ‘Ad Trackers’ Blocklist file: http://www.bluetack.co.uk/config/ads-trackers-and-bad-pr0n.txt
Zip File Corrupted :: Error 9
:: Error in ReadFile: File not found, file=C:\Program Files\Bluetack\Blocklist Manager\Cache\http___www.bluetack.co.uk_config_ads-trackers-and-bad-pr0n.txt
:: http://www.bluetack.co.uk/config/ads-trackers-and-bad-pr0n.txt is empty.
:: Processing cancelled.
Finished Time: 11/27/2007 11:09:22 PM
Total Lines Read: 0
Lines Ignored: 0
Lines Added: 0
Dupes Merged: 0
Merged Ranges: 0
Split Ranges: 0
Sources Processed: 1
Process Time: 0.35 seconds.
Download Time: 1.23 seconds.
Total Time: 1.58 seconds.
:: Error Count: 1
any suggestions???
November 28th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Not sure, never had that happen to me. From the message, the list is corrupt, but that was just probably temporary (something on the bluetack server). Best option is to try again.
-Alex
November 30th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
well, i just waited a while and sure enough it worked..
anyway thanks
January 10th, 2008 at 10:42 am
great everything here i tries and tested and works fine great guide now i can dl in peace still i hope they will make pg2 vista compatible soon
January 26th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Hello Alex and all,
I’m trying to use your tutorial for x64 vista. I’ve downloaded and installed everything. When I open blocklist manager and click on the sources, it doesn’t download anything. (I have 2.7.7 btw), but when I go in and try to download the actual lists and export them blocklist.chache, everything seems to work fine. After opening Azerus though, I don’t see anything listed under the Description/Start IP/End Ip columns.
I have two questions
1) Since nothing happened when I pressed the sources tab, should I be worried (because all the government/education… tabs showed up and lists updated and the list exported fine)
2) Assuming Im fine from the first part, why is azerus not showing the blocked ip ranges?
Thanks
January 26th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
For the sources, that is completely normal. Basically, the first time you run it, it retrieves a sort of an index of lists (which you can choose to individually enable or disable). The index list gets stored on your machine the first time you click the sources button. Every time you click after that, it just checks to see if there are any new lists on the server (which there pretty much never are; in all the time I’ve used this program, it has never given me a new list). So you’re absolutely fine on that.
For the second point, I assume you are using the Safepeer plugin for Azureus. The only reason I’m thinking that it doesn’t work is if it set up improperly. If you have the latest version of Azureus, you can bypass safepeer altogether (and this is the preferred method for the new clients) by just exporting the lists from Blocklist Manager into a Peerguardian formatted text file (just like blocklist.cache for Safepeer – you can just use this file if you want to). Then just head over to Tools -> Options -> IP Filter (in advanced mode, of course) and then just load up the text file there. Once saved, it should load up each time you start Azureus.
Should look something like this.
-Alex
March 9th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
hello, i have been using this method of IP filtering for some time now and it has worked great, but recently i have gotten this error message in blocklist manager when trying to update the filters…
Ready.
Opening source list…
Source list loaded.
:: Inclusions File is empty.
:: Exclusions File is empty.
:: No Sources to Process.
:: Processing cancelled.
Finished Time: 3/9/2008 10:25:36 PM
Total Lines Read: 0
Lines Ignored: 0
Lines Added: 0
Dupes Merged: 0
Merged Ranges: 0
Split Ranges: 0
Sources Processed: 2
Process Time: 0.18 seconds.
Download Time: 0.00 seconds.
Total Time: 0.18 seconds.
:: Error Count: 1
Ready.
I think this may have something to do with the recent update in azureus which may have messed up the plugin, anyways, if u have any ideas please help, thanks
by the way, is there any actual software like (peerguardian) that actually works on vista now that worth giving a shot?
March 10th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Blocklist Manager has recently updated its sources index (basically converted the .txt indexes into .zip ones), so try updating your sources and see if that helps.
As for any software compatible with Vista…none that I heard of yet, that’s why I’m simply sticking to this method right now. I mean, obviously you could set up any sort of software level proxy that manages its own blocklists and have the same effect, but I just figured this was the simplest way to do things right now.
-Alex
March 10th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
yeah, i update the sources and there was some new ones, but i still get the error when i try the process… any ideas? thanks. Azureus shows that it still is blocking IP’s, but does that mean it is working or is that just normal?
March 11th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
I’m afraid I’m not quite sure then, although:
“Download Time: 0.00 seconds.” Seems a little odd. It’s basically saying it didn’t even go out and look for those files on bluetack’s servers.
Actually, one thing you will have to do, now that I think about it, is re-enable the source files from the recent update. So you’ll need to go to Tools->Options in Blocklist manager and click the sources tab on the left. See that the sources you want are enabled (and I assume this is actually what is going on because of “:: No Sources to Process.” message).
-Alex
March 13th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
PERFECT!!! thank you so much, that did the trick. after allowing the sources, it now allows me to update the filters, anyways, thank you so much.
March 14th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
actually… now im getting this. it starts everything like normal, then i get this error message at the end, this part i just copied from where the error starts (with all the red), the rest i didnt paste because it looks normal like it always does… any ideas?
Zip File Corrupted :: Error 9
:: Error in ReadFile: File not found, file=C:\Program Files\Bluetack\Blocklist Manager\Cache\http___www.bluetack.co.uk_config_level1.zip
:: http://www.bluetack.co.uk/config/level1.zip is empty.
:: Processing cancelled.
Finished Time: 3/14/2008 6:55:22 PM
Total Lines Read: 56385
Lines Ignored: 6
Lines Added: 0
Dupes Merged: 159
Merged Ranges: 0
Split Ranges: 0
Sources Processed: 9
Process Time: 15.67 seconds.
Download Time: 20.79 seconds.
Total Time: 36.47 seconds.
Rules Added: 56220
Rules Per Second: 3587.20
:: Error Count: 1
Ready.
March 16th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
It downloaded the list incorrectly (either on your end or something was up with bluetack’s servers at the time, who knows). sloppydave (comment #29) had a similar problem which fixed itself after a bit of time.
-Alex
March 23rd, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I take it I have to keep doing this export in order to stay up-to-date?
March 24th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Yeah, pretty much. There are ways you can make it into task under task manager to run whenever you want it to as well (download lists and auto export them). I generally just do it manually though just in the random case that there is an error.
-Alex
May 5th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Glad someone is working on Azureus! I’ve been concerned that safepeer, peerguardian (which I use) and the Azureus mechanism (which I learned of by googling to get here, thank you!) do not take into account when a download fails. They all zero out the cache of bad IP’s and happily tell you everything is fine. I’ve tried several things, maybe you have the solution? I was able to work around peerguardian’s problem – I take a current copy of the cache, add it as something to be included – this crunches for twice as long or so, but at least there is decent protection when it is done. I tried combinations in safepeer and Azureus. Safepeer takes the 1st entry, not both, so I lose — it will zero the cache. Maybe I missed the solution using Azureus instead? Enlightenment would be great, thx!!
May 5th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
[...] of you still interested in making this work in Azureus, you can read my previous article. As for anyone who is wondering on how to block IP addresses without using PeerGuardian in [...]
May 5th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Well, like said, if you’re using the latest version of Azureus, you really don’t need to use Safepeer at all (at the cost of not having the blocklist be downloaded automatically). And yeah, I was actually having a similar problem with it, so that’s why I decided it was better just to take some time to fix up the lists manually and knowing it got done right verses an automatic but sometimes faulty update system that Safepeer had. You kind of have to choose the lesser of two evils on this one, unfortunately.
Also, if PeerGuardian works on your system, there really is no need to use any other blocklisting mechanisms (in Azureus, etc) as PeerGuardian takes care of it for you in the long run (and for all ports on your system).
-Alex
May 5th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
I’m glad that you threw in that last bit – I read your stuff here (and your previous article) and didn’t see that I missed a way to have Azureus **reliably** use an IP list. I would have thought that having ones filter work is considered important, so when your download fails, you should either continue using the old file or allow for multiple files to be merged (for the same reason and other advantages) and / or at least warn the user. (Not delete the current filter and just use 0. I didn’t see that any of these 3 failed “gently” – except that peerguardian CAN use multiple files and by manually grabbing one from time to time and putting it off to the side as a “backup”, a decent set of IP’s will always show up – as a work around… Just a little amazed that if you write code to do only one thing (like safepeer) you wouldn’t have bells go off when it fails – or have a backup strategy – especially when it is so easy to do.
The problem I have with peerguardian (or blocklist manager) is that when I fire it up to use Azureus, it also blocks a lot of stuff that I’d like to look at with my browser at the same time. — still no perfect solution.. So, maybe like you, I fire it up and also have Azureus point to its output. The best or worst?? of both worlds! HA!
I did notice, when going through these and testing, that safepeer either compresses the data or deletes a lot – didn’t bother to see which, assume it compresses. In that the filter was like 1357kb for safepeer, but the same pointer with peerguardian produced a filter of like 6062kb. I don’t know that there is any diff in processing time, etc. – Assume it doesn’t matter except for size.
[Hmm.. but safepeer allows for 2 databases... too bad it wouldn't let you use its blocker for the first and point to an older file for the 2nd.. Rube Goldberg, look out!!]
Anyway, I’ve gone down enough bogus paths in the last few months that I am very glad to have confirmation that I’d be wasting more time trying to find what I must be missing — ’cause I ain’t. Thanks!!!!
May 20th, 2008 at 12:51 am
UPDATE FOR VISTA USERS
FIRST OFF IN ORDER TO GET SAFEPEER PLUGIN TO WORK DELETE THE URL’S IN BOTH SAFEPEER AND BLOCKLIST SECTIONS OF SAFEPEER PLUGIN CLEAR THE DATA AND SAVE.
ALSO THE DIRECTORY (FOR ME) DOES NOT GO INTO USERS/…/ROAMING…AZUREUS…PLUGINS IT IS IN THE DEFAULT INSTALL FOLDER FOR AZUREUS AND THEN UNDER THE PLUGINS FOLDER
IE (F:\Azureus\plugins\safepeer) THAT IS WHERE YOU WANT TO EXPORT YOUR BLOCKLIST.CACHE FILE TO FROM BLOCKLIST MANAGER
I PUT IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE EVERYTHING I SAY IS IMPORTANT SO premtiptive fukyou
May 22nd, 2008 at 9:41 am
Or you could skip SafePeer altogether and just use Azureus’ built in IP blocklist filter. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.
-Alex
June 14th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
How much better is this method than the built in IP blocklist for Azureus?
-B
June 17th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
I should have probably worded it differently. So there are three types of filters that are being talked about:
- First one is the regular old IP banning method built into Azureus. This filter has no entries initially and only build entries of IPs when bad data (hash failed) packets are sent from those IPs. This is basically a way for Azureus to say, “Ok, I’ve received more than enough of your bad data and now I don’t want to communicate with you,” and at that point, the IP that sends the bad data gets blocklisted. This blocklisting method remains in effect even when any other blocklist is initially activated (unless you specifically turn it off in the options in Azureus).
- Second one is the built in blocklist importer with Azureus. This is available in newer versions of Azureus where a blocklist can be exported to a file from Blocklist Manager and then imported directly into Azureus without any other sort of plug-in. This is the preferred method of getting the “initial” (or predefined) blocklists to work.
- The third is to actually install the Safepeer plug-in and use that to manage the importing of blocklists – which you don’t really need to use unless the second method isn’t working for you for some reason (like having an old version of Azureus).
So the difference between the first method and the last two is that the first one bans IPs based on bad data, whereas the last two ban IPs based on the IP affiliation (like the IP Ranges for the MPAA/RIAA along with others). However, even though it technically blocks those ranges (for you copyright infringement sorts), it really only adds a sort of a paranoia hat on to you, since the MPAA/RIAA and affiliates could easily use another IP address that currently isn’t in the blocklist to track you down. So while it is good, it is not perfect. When in doubt, use a private tracker
.
-Alex
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Hi im from the uk and just wondering dose this stop my isp from finding out if im downloading ?
Today (July 24th) leading isp companys have all agreed to start clamping down on illegal downloaders
So i need help all i need to know is will this stop them finding out or is there any way of stopping them from finding out please leave a reply i need your help
July 24th, 2008 at 8:36 am
Danny – see here: http://torrentfreak.com/uk-isps-to-start-sending-mass-080724/
Now for your inquiry of this tutorial blocking any “warning letters” – depends. Depends on how exactly they are “catching” the alleged filesharing people. If they’re doing it by packet traffic, you could easily just encrypt your BT client’s incoming and outgoing traffic. Furthermore, there are legitimate uses of the Bittorrent protocol, so even if they filter packets, you might not be doing anything wrong.
However, from further reading, the UK ISP “clamping” seems to affect the Gnutella traffic only (Limewire) and similar. So just keep sticking with Bittorrent with client encryption and you should be ok.
Read more about encrypting here: http://torrentfreak.com/how-to-encrypt-BitTorrent-traffic/
Furthermore, I found an older article relating to the UK ban that may help you out a bit as well: http://torrentfreak.com/illegal-downloaders-will-not-face-uk-ban-080212/
-Alex
July 24th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Getting this error message when exporting list from the manager.Doesnt seem to be updating to Azureus.
:: Error in WriteFile: Path/File access error, file=C:\Program Files (x86)\Azureus\plugins\safepeer
Any ideas?
thanks so much
July 25th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Looks like you don’t have access to write to that folder (or if you’re trying to write to that folder as a file…)
Try using the method that doesn’t involve safepeer (saving the .p2p file in your documents folder, for example, and then linking that up to Azureus).
-Alex
July 26th, 2008 at 8:34 am
So what your saying is do an update and export list in the Manager. Send the export .p2p file to my documents. Then in Azureus – Tools – Options – IP filtes under the Auto Loading – IP Filter file to autoload, u type in the link to the .p2p and hit load? That’s it? And do frequent updates with the Manager?
Is this the non-safe peer way? And do i uninstall safepeer or keep that going?
July 26th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Exactly. On every point.
Though keep in mind that you will only have to hit load once for that time Azureus is running – it’ll automatically load the filters each time Azureus starts up after that (including updates, basically whatever is in the .p2p file at the time of Azureus’ start up goes into a filter for Azureus).
So yeah, that’s the way you do it with the latest version of Azureus, and so you can either keep SafePeer or you can uninstall it at this point, it really doesn’t make a real difference.
-Alex
July 26th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Cool, Thanks ALex.
Cheers
August 24th, 2008 at 9:01 am
Thank you alex for your help and reply i have done exactly as you have said everything is going fine so far no letters or anything anyway
So thanks i would advise other to listen to alex
October 21st, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Hi Alex,
I have followed all your tutorial steps to download the blocklist manager, and everything looks OK. But my questions are: when I am downloading a movie/music in utorrent, I can still see a lot of IP addresses in the “peers section” and now I can see in the “logger section” Loaded ipfilter.dat (which before I couldn’t see because I didn’t had any blocklist) plus IPv6 is installed (this one is the one I have default). Am I missing something here?
Thanks!
Andy
November 1st, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Ah, sorry for the late reply. I assume since you’re saying ipfilter.dat that you’re using uTorrent, in which case you might want to check out the following:
http://www.austrianalex.com/2008/05/05/vista-ip-blocking-ii-utorrent
If you’ve got your ipfilter.dat loaded up in uTorrent and its not sending up any error messages (and saying it loaded anything more than 0 entries from ipfilter.dat in the logging section) then you should be fine, even with IPv6.
-Alex
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Thanks for your reply Alex!.
First of all, Thank You for taking the time to help people in this matter!!!. Maybe I didn’t explain myself clear last time… I did followed your tutorial since the first time I’ve replyed to you back in Oct 21st: http://www.austrianalex.com/2008/05/05/vista-ip-blocking-ii-utorrent (which I think is great!!!), but how do I know if this is really blocking my IP address? and if it’s alright to still keep seeing all this IP addresses in the peers section?. As you said, this is what is shows in the logger section:
[2008-11-03 22:03:02] Loaded ipfilter.dat (289906 entries)
[2008-11-03 22:03:03] IPv6 is installed
Do I need to do something else?, do I need to delete the IPv6? or that’s it?
Again, Thank You for all your help!… the tutorial is very easy to follow and straight forward. Hope this question helps another users like myself who are kinda new in utorrent.
Thanks,
Andy!
November 4th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Well, try it out:
http://www.utorrent.com/testport.php?port=6881
Replace 6881 with the port number you are using with utorrent. Because uTorrent’s website is actually blocked in the blocklist (the whole deal with it being owned by BitTorrent Inc and them having a bad reputation in the beginning), and assuming you have your ports forwarded correctly already, that page should show an “error” if your blocklist is working. That’s pretty much how you can know.
As for the IP’s in the peers section, they should already be the ones that are not included within the blocklist range, so that’s completely ok. After all, you need to connect to someone to download/upload things.
IPv6 is questionable. Currently the only version of uTorrent that supports IPv6 is 1.8.1 (and the betas before that), but I could not find anything specific in regards to whether or not it blocks out IPv6 connections automatically by looking at the IPv4 ones in the ipfilter.dat file and translating them or if you actually need to specifically put them in yourself. I’d ask at the uTorrent forums about this.
-Alex
November 4th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Hi Again Alex,
I did the test for the port 6881 and it did showed me an “error”, so I guess we are fine there!!!.
So if you find out what to do with the IPv6 let me know… (because I really don’t know what it is for?).
cheers!
Andy
November 9th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Hi alex
you advice sought. i’m running vista 32 and azureus/vuze. anything u could advice to encrypt/block ip from ISP’s when downloading torrents? there was advice to go for RC4 but it is abit outdated, i wonder if there’s anything newer?
thank a lot
March 28th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Hey guys (prev two posts), sorry I never got the email notifications for these new comments and I only saw them now. But for anyone else who is stumbling upon this information and wondering the same thing, here’s some quick answers:
IPv6 is currently NOT blocked in any sort of blocklist managing software so if your client has IPv6 support, the blocklist WILL NOT catch those addresses.
As for the second point, encryption in the client is a very good idea. I, in fact, will only use RC4 encrypted connections and will refuse anything else, though this only helps against the packet inspection performed by some ISPs in some countries, not against any organization like the RIAA or MPAA. There are currently only two main encryption types supported by torrent software – plaintext and RC4. Plaintext is very rudimentary and there really isn’t a benefit to using it; if you’re going to start encrypting traffic, you’re better off just using RC4.
Alex
May 1st, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Hey I already downloaded the blocklist manager and I wanted to know if this works for “FrostWire”? Im new to all of this and wanted to know if I have to have “Azureus”.
May 1st, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Not sure, I haven’t touched anything Gnutella-network wise for well over a few years, so I can’t really answer your question. I mean, if it has some sort of built in firewall in it, then it might be able to; you just might have to save the blocklist to a different format. That’s if you’re using FrostWire for Gnutella network stuff, anyways. If you’re using it for bittorrent, don’t; instead use a proper bittorent client like utorrent or azureus.
Alex
June 13th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
You can use utorrent’s built in ip-filtering. Check the guide out here: http://orestech.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/peerguardian-pg2-alternative-ipfilter-dat-utorrent/
October 14th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Or you could just use http://peerblock.com
so much easier!