Gaming and the Northwest Firewall

The Northwest Firewall

The Northwest firewall is very restrictive, and many games do not work online because of port restrictions. In case you are considering buying an game, you may want to consult this list. Note that even if a game works, you probably can't host games to clients on the internet. Also, almost all games work over the University LAN. Please add games in alphabetical order.

If a game does not work, you may be able to get the ports unblocked. It seems like your best bet is to talk to a Computer Services in person at the library, rather than emailing someone. Your results may vary. Often requests are denied for silly or nonsensical reasons.

Games that Work

• Blockland
• Cube
• Diablo 2
• F.E.A.R. (Demo)
• Halo
• Quake 4
• Starcraft
• UT2003 (demo and full version)
• UT2004 (demo and full version)
• Warcraft III
• World of Warcraft

Games that do not Work

• America's Army
• Battlefield
• Battlefield 1942
• Call of Duty 1 & 2
• Far Cry
• iSketch
• Multi Theft Auto
• Planeshift
• RuneScape
• Steam (Half-life 2, Counterstrike Source)
• World of Warcraft

Other Services that do not work, so don't even try

• Just about any P2P file-sharing program, including Limewire and BitTorrent.
• rsync - The "syadmin" refused to open up the gates for rsync, claiming it was "too much of a security hole."
• Secure POP3 (ie: can't check GMail with Outlook and other programs)
• SMTP (outgoing mail) ... You can use the Northwest SMTP server, but it has historically taken some work, as the Northwest computing staff brings new levels of depth to the word 'incompetent'. You might be able to connect to your SMTP host if they also run on an alternate port. For example, Dreamhost allows connections to their SMTP server on port 587 because many ISPs have begun to block port 25.
• XBOX Live (It is purported that connecting an XBOX to the internet causes instability in the university's network)

Currently Not Accepting Requests

If you sumbit a port or list of ports to the sysadmin to be unblocked at the current time (November 2005), your request will be denied. You'll probably get an e-mail response that looks something like this:

"Thank you for completing the game port request forms. However, I am sorry that I cannot open game ports at this time. We are currently maxing our Internet connection and the decision was made that academic pursuits have priority.

When the situation changes, I will again evaluate each request individually. You will not have to send a new form. However, the ports for the game Steam will not be opened due to the huge range of ports involved. I appreciate your patience and your assistance in keeping our Northwest Missouri State University network running efficiently.

Have a good school year."

External links

• Firewall Ports Request Form - Either fire up your favorite PDF editor (right) or print this thing out and bring it to the library desk. It's the official way of getting your request rejected by the sysadmin.