Opening port 44158

[Emma4041]

Can someone please please help? I am trying to open port 44158 for my Bobcat helium miner. I work in IT so (as far as I'm aware) have tried everything. I have even been on the phone with level 2 Virgin media IT team for 3 hours. I have tried unblocking my IP address from spamhaus.com but I can't as it says my ISP has to do that (VM say they can't).

How on earth do I get port 44158 to stay open? I have a Hub3. Many thanks.

[jem101]

The first thing is to check that the port is open and listening on the device itself for incoming connections on your local network. I’m not familiar with the product but can you SSH or even telnet onto that port from a PC on the LAN and does it respond and stay open?

If it doesn’t then the issue is with it or your network setup and nothing to do with the VM hub or infrastructure at all.

Incidentally I not sure that VM even have a ‘level 2’ support in their offshore customer services so it’s anyones guess who you were talking to, and forget about Spamhaus, that’s only for email/spam blocking and if you were thinking about their PBL then you should be on it, Spamhaus will absolutely refuse to remove your address and VM wouldn’t be able to either.

John

[g0akc]

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@Emma4041 wrote:

Can someone please please help? I am trying to open port 44158 for my Bobcat helium miner. I work in IT so (as far as I'm aware) have tried everything. I have even been on the phone with level 2 Virgin media IT team for 3 hours. I have tried unblocking my IP address from spamhaus.com but I can't as it says my ISP has to do that (VM say they can't).

How on earth do I get port 44158 to stay open? I have a Hub3. Many thanks.

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Is UPnP enabled?

Have you set up port forwarding/Port triggering?

https://www.virginmedia.com/help/virgin-media-set-up-port-forwarding-port-triggering

(it will be TCP)

The Helium community forums may be useful to you?

https://community.helium.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-port-44158-how-does-it-come-into-play-with-cha...

[Emma4041]

Many thanks for your time in replying John. When I check the port on my laptop it says closed. I have tried a few port checkers, one says 'filtered' which usually means it's behind a firewall but I have my virgin Firewall setting set to OFF. When I first contacted Virgin they put me through to their IT team, the advisor decided they couldn't help me after 45 minutes and said she was referring me to a 'level 2' IT technician, after 1.5 hours he decided he couldn't help either, he remoted into my laptop and just redid everything I already tried. He suggested spamhaus, that didn't waork so he referred me back to the Broadband team who told me they couldnt/wouldn't take my IP off the blocked list.

[Emma4041]

Many thanks for taking the time to reply to me. UPnP is not enabled as I was strongly advised not to do this by the Helium community due to security issues...however, before I had this information I did try enabling it but it didn't make any difference. I haven't played around with port triggering, only port forwarding. thank you for the links, I will read through those when I get home.

[g0akc]

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@Emma4041 wrote:

Many thanks for taking the time to reply to me. UPnP is not enabled as I was strongly advised not to do this by the Helium community due to security issues...however, before I had this information I did try enabling it but it didn't make any difference. I haven't played around with port triggering, only port forwarding. thank you for the links, I will read through those when I get home.

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Well that's likely the problem.

Such ports are opened on your router by;

• UPnP (automatic, requested by apps/services)
• Port Forwarding/Triggering rules set in a table (configured in the router settings)

Many disable UPnP for fear of untrusted apps/services such as Malware - fair enough if that's what you want to do - but if you don't have UPnP enabled to open the ports (do the port forwarding) automatically then you need to do so manually.

So set a port forward and port trigger rule for port 44158  with protocol TCP to the Helium device - by its name or LAN IP address (and any other ports likely to be needed).  You might want to give the device a static IP address.

[g0akc]

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@Emma4041 wrote:

 I have my virgin Firewall setting set to OFF.

He suggested spamhaus, that didn't waork so he referred me back to the Broadband team who told me they couldnt/wouldn't take my IP off the blocked list.

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I suggest you have it set to ON - unless you are using a different firewall ?

He clearly didn't know what he was talking about - Spamhaus is primarily concerned with SPAM - i.e. unwanted emails which often are being sent out by rogue apps or malware on some people's systems.  The PBL has been referred to - only a mail server operator or such should be asking about removal of any address on that - so it would typically be an ISP.

If your IP address has been blocked it would typically be because you have a spambot running, probably unintentionally.  Addresses are typically unblocked within a few days of any such malware being stopped.  This is a red herring regarding the question you've raised.

[g0akc]

Finally, for now, let us know how you get on once you've set up the firewall rules (port forwarding, port triggering).

Come back here if it's still unclear.

You can, if necessary, do things like sniff the packets on your network to see what's going on (I use Wireshark or similar).

Incidentally, what are you using the Helium kit for?  Do you have a connectivity requirement for IoT kit?  To make money from providing such connectivity?

[Emma4041]

Great, really appreciate your advice. I will try all the options you have suggested when I finish work. I will of course update this thread. I'm using a Bobcat HNT miner to add to the People's Network, you get paid for it in HNT crypto. A mining box can make anywhere up to £500-600 a month so it's worth it.

[g0akc]

See these links

https://helium.nebra.com/handy-guides/port-forwarding/overview

and on that page you should see the link to the VM hub 3;

https://helium.nebra.com/handy-guides/port-forwarding/vm-superhub-v3