Has my workplace blocked port 6667? Can I get around that to access #mefi somehow?

January 23, 2004 11:33 AM

So I've recently discovered I can't access #mefi from work anymore, and I suspect it's probably because they've blocked traffic on the 6667 port. Is there a means to get around this?
posted by antifreez_ to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

The answer is going to depend heavily on what, exactly, your employer has changed. If it's just the addition of a single port to the filter list, try another port. The IRC server may very well be listening on 6666, 6668 and 6669 as is customary. If it's not, your options are going to depend almost entirely on what other restrictions and technical barriers are in place at your workplace.
posted by majick at 11:47 AM on January 23, 2004

Response by poster: True. After trying a few other ports, I suspect it may be more complicated than that. I can connect to turlyming.com via http (that is to say, the web site) without difficulty, but not irc.turlyming.com.
posted by antifreez_ at 11:54 AM on January 23, 2004

If you have a computer outside of the company network that you can install an SSH server on, you could tunnel your traffic through there. Depending on your level of networking expertise, its not the easiest thing in the world to do, especially if your work admins have also disabled port 22.

You can run OpenSSH on your home computer, but if you have windows its a hassle because you'll also have to install Cygwin. Once you get the hang of it, SSH tunneling is very useful (and gives you the added benefit of encrypting your traffic), but the learning curve is admittedly steep without prior networking experience.
posted by mfbridges at 12:12 PM on January 23, 2004

if ssh won't work, another solution is to use an irc proxy on an allowed port. once again you will need access to a remote computer to make this feasible. because these proxies can end up being misconfigured to allow open access/anonymizing to the internet at large, among other issues, i'm not going to give links.
posted by lescour at 8:36 PM on January 23, 2004