Folding Forum

Cody, I am unsure what conflict you are referring to, as I am using Avast Anti Virus only, and ZA Firewall only - I am not running the full suites of either. Can an AV program and firewall be in conflict with each other? I guess I don't understand what is overlapping, but I'm open to input if I am missing something.

For what it's worth, Avast ran seamlessly with Windows Firewall running and they had no noticeable conflicts. Of course, windows firewall is now disabled with the installation of ZA. I was simply not happy with the protection level of Windows FW.

Also, as per the ZA forums, it appears that the free versions do not have the functionality of opening specific ports, and this seems to be the hang up with ZA and f@h.

Has anyone one here gotten a free version of ZA to work with f@H?

Where did the question about "opening up specific ports" come from? The V6 client needs to have permission to contact the internet. There's no requirement for specific ports. It uses the commonly recognized ports 8080 or 80 but ZA does need to give it general permission to contact the internet, not an exception for specific ports.

bruce,

It came from this, posted in the ZA forums (sorry, got my threads crossed and didn't realized this snippet of the f@h log wasn't on display here) :
I know that this does not make a 100% determination that a port is being blocked, but I sure would have loved the functionality to test within the free ZA software. It appears that this i only available in the fee based version. I still have not answered this, and am still unable to send these results with ZA Free running.

So, Answer # 3, An application can't reach the Internet - can I fix this? doesn't work in the free version?

http://www.zonealarm.com/security/en-us ... op-ten.htm

7im,

This was from the first post in this thread

Vgolfmaster wrote:

I am currently running the 6.30r2 client on my GPU, and the 6.23 client on my CPU (installed as a service). I have the executables and the clients for each of these added as exceptions in ZA and all are given full permissions, and still I can not upload completed work units.

Apparently allowing access for the programs is not enough as far as folding at home is concerned. The free version does in fact allow program rights to be set manually, but this still is not enough.

Vgolfmaster wrote:bruce,

It came from this, posted in the ZA forums (sorry, got my threads crossed and didn't realized this snippet of the f@h log wasn't on display here) :

Code: Select all

[03:29:37] + Attempting to send results [November 7 03:29:37 UTC]
[03:29:37] Gpu type=3 species=30.
[03:29:40] - Couldn't send HTTP request to server
[03:29:40] + Could not connect to Work Server (results)
[03:29:40] (171.67.108.26:8080)
[03:29:40] + Retrying using alternative port
[03:29:43] - Couldn't send HTTP request to server
[03:29:43] + Could not connect to Work Server (results)
[03:29:43] (171.67.108.26:80)
[03:29:43] Could not transmit unit 07 to Collection server; keeping in queue.
[03:29:43] + Closed connections 

I know that this does not make a 100% determination that a port is being blocked, but I sure would have loved the functionality to test within the free ZA software. It appears that this i only available in the fee based version. I still have not answered this, and am still unable to send these results with ZA Free running.

This has absolutely nothing to do with Zone Alarm. You are trying to connect to a Collection Server which is off-line.

If you disable ZA completely, FAH still won't connect to that server. If you try to open http://171.67.108.26 with your browser, you'll get exactly the same error.

There's a forum topic Troubleshooting Server Connectivity Issues (Do This First) which even has a section documenting the status of many of the Collection Servers. Check the status of 171.67.108.26 on http://fah-web.stanford.edu/serverstat.html and you'll find it is in "standby". You can't fix that by changing things on your computer.

gwildperson,

I appreciate the input, but this is absolutely not the case. If you look at the earlier post, disabling ZA allowed the work unit to send, and to the exact same server. I have been folding for many years and know to look at the server status when there are sending errors, and this has nothing to do with this scenario. Zone Alarm is preventing these work units from sending, and this is what I need to get addressed.

You didn't post a log showing which WU uploaded to 171.67.108.26 and when it happened. If you still have that log, please post it (or wait for it to happen again).

If http://171.67.108.26 is inaccessible to your browser, as it is right now, then ZA has nothing to do with it. As long as that server is shown as in standby or DOWN or if a connection attempt from your browser fails, as it does right now, uploading to that server is impossible. If your browser showed a blank page on one just saying "OK" or if serverstat said it's Full/Accepting or accept/Accepting then it might have been possible. According the server history, it has been in standby for more than a week. I have no information older than that.

In fact, if you see a status of Full/Accepting or accept/Accepting, please post here and we can reopen this discussion.

Here is an example of another server, so you can see what I am describing. The only thing that changed changed between the failed attempt, and the successful one, was me turning off ZA.
Same server, different port attempts. The exact same behavior is exhibited regardless of the server. It fails when ZA is running, and completes when I turn off ZA.

The difference is that server 171.64.65.64 is fully operational, with a status of full/Accepting and 171.67.108.26 is not. With respect to server 171.64.65.64, if port 8080 happens to be blocked, that's not critical. The client will also try port 80 which will rarely be blocked. That's why it tries both.

I'm I'm not disputing that ZA can block access to a fully functional server but that's no longer your problem. What ZA cannot do is to enable you to contact a server that is non-functional such as 171.67.108.26.

The server status is updated regularly on http://fah-web.stanford.edu/pybeta/serverstat.html. You will note that 171.67.108.26 is non-functional. Before your client attempts to contact it, it will always try both ports on another server, and that's how your WUs are being uploaded. Please ignore any messages associated with it.

I don't understand why you think ZA is no longer blocking access bruce,

If I turn it on, my work units don't send. If I turn it off, they do. These snippets are only a couple examples, but it does this every time, regardless of which server it is trying. The example above shows this behavior within a 21 second window; with ZA on it could not connect, then when I shut ZA off it did. What else do you need in order to see that ZA free is blocking this?

In this thread and on the ZA threads I have yet to find one person who is able to send wu's using ZA free, only with the paid version. That seems pretty supportive.

I don't think that you understand that there are three different points being made.

1) ZA is able to block access and to unblock access. To use FAH, you do need to define the proper exceptions or find a different firewall. Personally, I, too, have used an older version of free ZA, and in that version, the exceptions could be added. I would be very surprised if it's no longer possible to configure those exceptions but I have no first-hand information about the current free version which may or may not be the same in this regard. The exception that I needed to granted for the FAH client software to contact the internet and it had nothing to do with specific servers or specific ports.

2) The log you posted here: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=19963#p199368 is not an example of a problem with ZA. We're trying to tell you that that particular example was meaningless because of which server was mentioned. When things are working correctly, you'll still get error messages for servers which are down.

3) FAH doesn't need you to configure specific ports. When things are working correctly, you may still get error messages about port 8080 but FAH will still be able to upload.

We have to focus on point 1 and stop talking about points 2 and 3 which have nothing to do with the problem you're reporting.

OK. Cody expressed it very well.

Please post an example of item 1.

We need a example of WU which cannot upload to a server that's fully operational at the time the upload was attempted. Once you have one of those, you need two pieces of additional information. First, that it's a ZA issue by disabling ZA. Second, confirm that you don't need to add an exception for that particular client to contact the internet. It would be helpful if you knew whether that client had successfully uploaded to other servers or using other ports with ZA operational.

I've run at least 7 different folders using ZA free without issues. Currently have two that haven't been converted to linux - one XP and one Win7.

If I have time tomorrow, I'll try to bork one of them...