okay well i opened up the first port that BT looks at on my router, so all i need to do is open up the port (6881) on my firewall run by iptables. im not really fluent with the program (although i have gotten links to the website http://www.iptables.org which is good) but i was hoping if someone could give me the commands neccessary to allow iptables to recieve (and i assume since its BT) to send through the port 6881. i plan on learning iptables so i apologize if it sounds like im lazy, i would just like a solution ASAP so i can download some stuff ^_^. any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answering this properly requires a bit more knowledge about your firewall. The rule you want to add is something like

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 6881 -j ACCEPT


However if there is a rule eariler in the table that would drop these packets for some reason, this rule will never see the packets to accept them.

It would help a great deal if you could post your iptables script. Then we could make sure the rule goes in the right place.

sorry i should've posted it earlier. i have a basic firewall set up that i copied from the Red Hat For Dummies book. I haven't really worried about it but i KNOW that it will make BT d/l go really slow or not work at all.

Chain INPUT (policy DROP)
target prot opt source destination
ACCEPT all -- anywhere anywhere
ACCEPT all -- anywhere anywhere state RELATED,ESTABLISHED

Chain FORWARD (policy DROP)
target prot opt source destination

Chain OUTPUT (policy DROP)
target prot opt source destination
ACCEPT all -- anywhere anywhere
ACCEPT all -- anywhere anywhere state NEW,RELATED,ESTABLISHED

Chain RH-Lokkit-0-50-INPUT (0 references)
target prot opt source destination
ACCEPT udp -- clock.redhat.com anywhere udp spt:ntp dpt:ntp
ACCEPT udp -- clock.redhat.com anywhere udp spt:ntp dpt:ntp
ACCEPT udp -- 192.168.0.1 anywhere udp spt:domain dpts:1025:65535

also if you have any recommendations on changing my current settings that would make it better please feel free to input and thank you ^_^

You've posted the output of iptables -L. However, from the looks of it, you're using Lokkit to configure your firewall. Is that true? If so, you're going to have to read the Lokkit documentation to find out how to open a specific port. I don't use lokkit, so I can't offer any advice if you go that way.

If you're working off of your own iptables script, or if you can find the lokkit script, you could add the line I had in my first post. Looking at your input rules, I don't think that you need to put it in front of the REALTED,ESTABLISHED rule, but it couldn't hurt. You may also need to put a similar rule in your OUTPUT table. Just change the INPUT in my first post to OUTPUT.

Your current firewall looks like it allows connections originating from inside your machine to work, but should stop things from coming in. However, you should go visit the first thread in the Security forum and start reading on how to harden your box. One of the easiest things to do is run netstat -l to find out what services are running and shut down any services that you don't use. Firewalls are good, but they aren't perfect and the fewer services you have running the better.

okay thanks a bunch. as for the lokkit thing, im not too sure about that. my guess is since its dealing with the Red Hat Network clock thing (which i didn't physically set up i just told red hat when i was installed to connect to that network to make sure my time is always right) but im positive i did the rest in iptables. anyways thanks for all your help ^_^