Simple Chat's limits?

[Troy Rollins]

On Sunday, May 12, 2002, at 04:52 AM, DropBox ForSpam wrote:

> How about the connection, if I'm connected to a high
> speed data line through a router, can the chat clients
> connect to me?  How do I figure out the server IP
> address?  My attempts returned the IP address that the
> router served up (i.e. 192.168.1.101, I'm assuming
> that no one else outside of my lan can connect to that
> address, right?).

DropBox (you must have been teased as a kid),

This part I can help a bit with. Your router has an internal address, 
and an external one. Your internal address is the one you have 
mentioned. Your external address may be dynamically assigned by your 
cable/dsl ISP, or you may have a fixed address. Obviously, a fixed 
address makes things easier, but there are ways around the dynamic 
address issue (software that posts your current IP to a web site, etc.)

Now, to get the chat to work, you must configure the router for "port 
forwarding". Essentially, you tell the router what IP ports you wish to 
forward to your internal address. These would be the same ports the chat 
application is configured to use. Then, when messages come in to your 
router on those ports, they immediately get sent specifically to your 
machine to be handled by your chat server and sent back out. Most 
routers have an internal web page, or configuration utility to handle 
setup of the port forwarding process.

As for how many it can handle - there are a lot of variables involved. 
My guess would be tens rather than hundreds, but who knows? I doubt that 
your processor speed will be the limitation - more likely the speed and 
reliability of your connection, your router, etc.

If you try it out, let us know how it goes.

Cheers.

--
Troy
RPSystems
www.rpsystems.net