Opening AIM Ports in D-Link Firewall?

hello everyone. recently i purchased a D-Link VPN DI-804HV router with advanced firewall, application filtering, the works. it has replaced my old basic linksys that started to die on me after a couple years of constant use. so far, everything has been running perfectly. i configured the firewall to the best of my knowledge to be secure, and ran a port scan on myself from an outside address to check for any open ports. nothing was found to be open.

i am having some problems however, with getting certain applications to function on more than one machine on my lan. for instance, my younger brother and i both like to use aim. if i launch aim, it will run fine, but if he tries to run aim at the same time i am, it will not connect. this problems happens the other way around as well. for some reason, the firewall seems to only let one of us connect at a time. i know i must open up more ports i suppose, but i have no idea how to do this.

does anyone know what specific ports need to be open for aim? does anyone know what the "trigger ports" are? i have googled for this info, but found no definite answer. all i could find were a few forum discussions about people talking about blocking aim, which they would usually just end up blocking the host name any way. also, i could find no information on the www.aim.com website for some reason. why they would not provide the networking information for their sotware is beyond me, but that is aol i suppose :rolleyes:

hello everyone. recently i purchased a D-Link VPN DI-804HV router with advanced firewall, application filtering, the works. it has replaced my old basic linksys that started to die on me after a couple years of constant use. so far, everything has been running perfectly. i configured the firewall to the best of my knowledge to be secure, and ran a port scan on myself from an outside address to check for any open ports. nothing was found to be open.

i am having some problems however, with getting certain applications to function on more than one machine on my lan. for instance, my younger brother and i both like to use aim. if i launch aim, it will run fine, but if he tries to run aim at the same time i am, it will not connect. this problems happens the other way around as well. for some reason, the firewall seems to only let one of us connect at a time. i know i must open up more ports i suppose, but i have no idea how to do this.

does anyone know what specific ports need to be open for aim? does anyone know what the "trigger ports" are? i have googled for this info, but found no definite answer. all i could find were a few forum discussions about people talking about blocking aim, which they would usually just end up blocking the host name any way. also, i could find no information on the www.aim.com website for some reason. why they would not provide the networking information for their sotware is beyond me, but that is aol i suppose :rolleyes:

I think it's like 4035, but you always go to prefrences and check the server and port that it connects on. I'm not on my box right now or I could give you a more specific location for it. A really good thing you could also do is convince the people you chat with to use another medium like ICQ (although AOL/Time Warner has that within it's clutches now as well), MSN, or Jabber. Also, if you do like AIM, I prepose that you use GAIM (*nix and Win32).

-Cheers-

I think it's like 4035, but you always go to prefrences and check the server and port that it connects on. I'm not on my box right now or I could give you a more specific location for it. A really good thing you could also do is convince the people you chat with to use another medium like ICQ (although AOL/Time Warner has that within it's clutches now as well), MSN, or Jabber. Also, if you do like AIM, I prepose that you use GAIM (*nix and Win32).

-Cheers-

oscar.aol.com listens on port 5190. The local port is any available high port. This is the box used for AIM. It may be helpful to check out your firmware rev. I know that Linksys put out an update that handled this exact issue. Perhaps D-Link also has problems negotiating AIM sessions.

oscar.aol.com listens on port 5190. The local port is any available high port. This is the box used for AIM. It may be helpful to check out your firmware rev. I know that Linksys put out an update that handled this exact issue. Perhaps D-Link also has problems negotiating AIM sessions.

thank you for the suggestions guys. i think i may have found the answer though, after doing a lot of digging at the d-link site, they provided the following information for opening aim:


AOL Instant Messenger
Please read http://support.dlink.com/faq/view.asp?prod_id=1239 for complete FAQ and screen shots.

For chat, you do not normally have to open any ports. If you are experiencing problems, follow the steps below:

Step 1 Open a web browser and enter the IP address of your router (192.168.0.1). Enter admin for your username and then your password (blank by default).

Step 2 Click on the Advanced tab and then Applications on the left side.

Step 3 Enter the following information:
Under Trigger, enter 4099.
Under Incoming Ports, enter 5190.

Step 4 Click on the Enable box.

Step 5 Click Apply and then click Restart to save your changes.

For File Transfer:

Please visit http://support.dlink.com/FAQ/view.asp?prod_id=1239 for complete FAQ.

NOTE: If you are experiencing problems when transfering files with AIM, make sure that you have the latest version of firmware on your router and the latest version of AIM.

Step 1 Verify that you are connected to the internet and sign on to AIM.

Step 2 Click on My AIM, click Edit Options, and then select Edit Preferences.

Step 3 Click on File Transfer and then click Firewall.

Step 4 Select Outgoing, and AOL proxy server and click OK.


hopefully that will help anyone else in the future. not sure why this info is so hard to find, and not even provided by aim in the first place. :cool:

thank you for the suggestions guys. i think i may have found the answer though, after doing a lot of digging at the d-link site, they provided the following information for opening aim:


AOL Instant Messenger
Please read http://support.dlink.com/faq/view.asp?prod_id=1239 for complete FAQ and screen shots.

For chat, you do not normally have to open any ports. If you are experiencing problems, follow the steps below:

Step 1 Open a web browser and enter the IP address of your router (192.168.0.1). Enter admin for your username and then your password (blank by default).

Step 2 Click on the Advanced tab and then Applications on the left side.

Step 3 Enter the following information:
Under Trigger, enter 4099.
Under Incoming Ports, enter 5190.

Step 4 Click on the Enable box.

Step 5 Click Apply and then click Restart to save your changes.

For File Transfer:

Please visit http://support.dlink.com/FAQ/view.asp?prod_id=1239 for complete FAQ.

NOTE: If you are experiencing problems when transfering files with AIM, make sure that you have the latest version of firmware on your router and the latest version of AIM.

Step 1 Verify that you are connected to the internet and sign on to AIM.

Step 2 Click on My AIM, click Edit Options, and then select Edit Preferences.

Step 3 Click on File Transfer and then click Firewall.

Step 4 Select Outgoing, and AOL proxy server and click OK.


hopefully that will help anyone else in the future. not sure why this info is so hard to find, and not even provided by aim in the first place. :cool: