Demystifying Pacenet (login based browsing session) And Speeding Up Peer to Peer Sharing

So year my first resolution became shifting from MTNL's unfriendly service to some (and later any) Broadband. And I shifted to Pacenet.
I am on a Rs 930, 1 Mbps Unlimited plan. (No FUP).

As with any new stuff, I am learning stuff that I never knew and trying to figure out the best way to use something. Pacenet requires you to login from a URL with your credentials before your net is activated. After which you can surf the Internet like normal.
But this login based browsing have a very annoying disadvantage. After sometime, you run of the session, and so you need to login again before using the Internet.

I purchased a TP-Link router (thanks to members at this thread). And configured it myself. It was very easy with the guide which came with the router.

As observed by me I can also login from my phone and Internet gets activated on all the other devices to which the router is connected to. But I require to login from the IP of Pacenet only. So this means suppose if my dad tells me that he can't access the Internet, I can't login from my job. He have to do that himself while connected to the connection provided by Pacenet.

Now this experience have raised following questions. I would be glad if members here can try to answer it for me.

1. How long does the session expire.
I can login from my PC and access Internet. And Even after shutting PC down in night, I can access Internet from my other devices. But when I wake up in the morning I am disconnected. So there must be some time before it gets reset.

2. Can I do some tweak in the router itself that I don't need to manually login each time the session expires?

3. I quote for this:

Rishi. said:
The high speed in peer to peer file sharing on lan , is because of Local peer discovery protocol of torrent clients.
you can sense the packets in wireshark to see if there are such activities happening on the network.
ps , this won't work if you are using router . Its a broadcast , which the router will not allow to pass in to your PC .

So how exactly do we sense the packets through wireshark, and can router be tweaked to allow the packets?

4. How exactly do we make a DC hub using DC++? (as a point raised by Utkarsh2008)

5. What steps you take to ensure that you always use HTTPS? Can someone steal the credentials if the pages I browse are not secure but the login was?
Eg: I login to TDF using secure page. But now I am browsing on HTTP.

I am not used to this session based browsing. MTNL was good in this regard. It was an always-on-ready-to-connect Internet. I miss it already.

PS: It's not required to answer everything at one go. We can discuss it over time.

Well actually those LPD packets are not exactly broadcast but instead a multi-cast packet. I am not sure if this will work if you have separated your downloading machine from the rest of the network ( ISP's LAN where local peers are directly available ) using a router.
Maybe Port-Forwarding on the router should fix this and allow LPD to work.

5. What steps you take to ensure that you always use HTTPS? Can someone steal the credentials if the pages I browse are not secure but the login was?
Eg: I login to TDF using secure page. But now I am browsing on HTTP.

Yes , most likely and if vulnerabilities are present then it would be damn easy for any fool with basic knowledge of compute tools.
It can be done within seconds.
This is a big disadvantage of being in an open network. You can use a VPN , But it's expensive.

The reason why you have to login every morning if you computer network is idle ( Internet Usage.) , is because of the fact that the connection timeout / session timeout for your idle account.I think the duration is around 2 Hours/120 minutes. Although this varies a lot , depending on how the account is configured.
While I was using spectranet , they had options in their UAC Panel to increase this idle timeout duration.
AFAIK , the only way to keep it consistent and not timeout is to maintain a data flow from the internet. I keep UTorrent switched on always to avoid this.
I think maybe someone can script a program that logs you into your account automatically as soon as you switch your PC on.

I have no idea about various home routers . But maybe some may have those "keepalive" feature in them.

BTW , have you swept your LAN to see how many users are there in your LAN in daytime ? ( When you are directly connected to the ethernet cable coming to your home,)

Well, two hours is too low. I do run torrents or something else that the session will not be timeout. But I can't keep the session active when my PC is down.
I will need to teach this login thing to others in my family so that they can surf Internet at alternate PC while I am out.
I can create scripts to auto login on PC, but I don't know if I can do that on mobile.. especially on my dad's windows mobile.

Rishi. said:
Yes , most likely and if vulnerabilities are present then it would be damn easy for any fool with basic knowledge of compute tools.
It can be done within seconds.
This is a big disadvantage of being in an open network. You can use a VPN , But it's expensive.

That is too scary a thought.

I refuse to believe that this would be so darn easy! I hope my router and firewall keeps me safe. Since I can't use VPN all the time.

How do I "sweep" my LAN?

Did I mention I was noob in networking?

Vyom , I will send you few pics/ videos tomorrow through PM. ( in office right now.)
PS : I am also a beginner in this domain.

Vyom said:
Well, two hours is too low. I do run torrents or something else that the session will not be timeout. But I can't keep the session active when my PC is down.
I will need to teach this login thing to others in my family so that they can surf Internet at alternate PC while I am out.
I can create scripts to auto login on PC, but I don't know if I can do that on mobile.. especially on my dad's windows mobile.

That is too scary a thought.
I refuse to believe that this would be so darn easy! I hope my router and firewall keeps me safe. Since I can't use VPN all the time.

How do I "sweep" my LAN?

Did I mention I was noob in networking?

Routers should keep you safe from several attacks , as it segments you .
It's usually not such a good idea to directly plug your device into the open network . Using a Router and firewall should offer you a level of protection . [ I think at least protection from Layer 2 attacks , which involves ARP poisoning attacks. But if the next router is connected via Ethernet ( instead of Serial) then it may not be helpful.]

There must be a provision of changing the timeout value. Change it to anything like 999999 seconds. Open networks are vulnerable but it ain't that easy to hack it. So don't worry much. Don't expose your id/password.

sksundram said:
There must be a provision of changing the timeout value. Change it to anything like 999999 seconds.

Mine doesn't have such options in UAC. In Fact the control panel is pathetic in this ISP.

W

*www.eff.org/https-everywhere

uTorrent(i suggest v2.0.4 or v2.2.1,download from filehippo utorrent previous versions pages) should be able to find local peers(Local Peer Discovery feature enabled by default i think) & once connected to them it will have no speed limits while transferring data to/from local peers.

in your router access management enable access control & limit router access to ip range(e.g.192.168.1.2-192.168.1.8 which lies within dhcp range & fix your main pc ip by associating it to mac address in router lan setting).

@Vyom is it possible for you to add static entries for the MAC ID for your local router or gateway ?? This can help you prevent those ARP poisoning attacks. [ the ones I mentioned you in the PM.]

Rishi. said:
@Vyom is it possible for you to add static entries for the MAC ID for your local router or gateway ?? This can help you prevent those ARP poisoning attacks. [ the ones I mentioned you in the PM.]

I see wifi routers have an option to block mac addresses.

I am not talking about blocking mac address . Though that also is an aspect of security , but what I am asking about is of using static entries of the destination gateway in the MAC table. This will probably prevent spoofing and MAC table poisoning , which my friend is a real PITA in an open network with some noob script kiddies around. They can use simple methods and your steal your plaintext passwords just like that.

Once when I downloading a movie from p2p I got almost 300 times speed than usual.Why is that?

bavusani said:
Once when I downloading a movie from p2p I got almost 300 times speed than usual.Why is that?

This is because someone in your neighbourhood was seeding the file to you at the bandwidth of your LAN , i.e. Say if you had a 100mbps Ethernet LAN , the speed would have been 8-10MBps .!!!!
This is because of the Local Peer Discovery feature in your BitTorrent clients. Minimize the load on your ISP , and make better use of a LAN's bandwidth.

Rishi. said:
Vyom , I will send you few pics/ videos tomorrow through PM. ( in office right now.)
PS : I am also a beginner in this domain.

Routers should keep you safe from several attacks , as it segments you .
It's usually not such a good idea to directly plug your device into the open network . Using a Router and firewall should offer you a level of protection . [ I think at least protection from Layer 2 attacks , which involves ARP poisoning attacks. But if the next router is connected via Ethernet ( instead of Serial) then it may not be helpful.]

I have one router connected to PC directly. The cable coming from Pacenet is connected to the router. Is it serial?

sksundram said:
There must be a provision of changing the timeout value. Change it to anything like 999999 seconds. Open networks are vulnerable but it ain't that easy to hack it. So don't worry much. Don't expose your id/password.

Rishi. said:
Mine doesn't have such options in UAC. In Fact the control panel is pathetic in this ISP.

Yup.. control panel of Pacenet not even provides a bare minimum of options. The only thing you can see there is "total data usage".

Rishi. said:
@Vyom is it possible for you to add static entries for the MAC ID for your local router or gateway ?? This can help you prevent those ARP poisoning attacks. [ the ones I mentioned you in the PM.]

The router settings page have options to enter all the details like IP Address, Subnet Mask, Default Gateway, MTU Size, and DNS etc.
Also on another page, I can enter IP Address and Subnet mark for MAC Address. Currently its set like this:

*i.minus.com/ibhcyWcMsOYOhj.JPG

So what should I change?

Edit: I saw this page too:
*i.minus.com/iuwHnsC0IBtjP.JPG

whitestar_999 said:
*www.eff.org/https-everywhere

uTorrent(i suggest v2.0.4 or v2.2.1,download from filehippo utorrent previous versions pages) should be able to find local peers(Local Peer Discovery feature enabled by default i think) & once connected to them it will have no speed limits while transferring data to/from local peers.

in your router access management enable access control & limit router access to ip range(e.g.192.168.1.2-192.168.1.8 which lies within dhcp range & fix your main pc ip by associating it to mac address in router lan setting).

I have started to use HTTPS Everywhere Add-on. Thanks for the link.
I will work on the Local Peer Discovery feature.

Also installing Wireshark to detect live traffic.

Update: I am overwhelmed by the sheer number of settings that I can do on my router and perplexed with the terms like DHCP, DMZ, Statis Routing list, System Routing Table etc... etc...
Will need a lot of time and guidance to fully understand the concepts.

Vyom said:
I have one router connected to PC directly. The cable coming from Pacenet is connected to the router. Is it serial?

Nah , They don't.

In one of the pictures you have a feature to reserve the MAC ID and associate it to a specific IP.
Get the MAC ID of the up-gateway router , and reserve it with it's IP address.

Also if you don't use too many devices in your home , then it would be better to not use DHCP , instead use static config.

Rishi. said:
Also if you don't use too many devices in your home , then it would be better to not use DHCP , instead use static config.

I do use a lot of devices.
My Android phone
My Nexus 7 tab
Company's laptop sometimes
Dad's Windows phone
Secondary PC connected via Wifi card
Sometimes my friend's phone and cousin's iPhone.

Thats a *lot* of devices, isn't it.

I want to limit the usage of broadband to these devices only. I think I will have to do a lot of reading on DHCP stuff!

@vyom try learning CCNA. It's easy and fun. Download cbtnuggets video series on ICND 1 and 2.

F

Vyom said:
I want to limit the usage of broadband to these devices only.

Then you should use static config..

What is your time interval between 2 login sessions? For example, as for me, if my network remains idle for 30 mins, it will ask for login and in use, it will again ask for login after 12 hrs. Hathway isp btw.

Piyush said:
What is your time interval between 2 login sessions? For example, as for me, if my network remains idle for 30 mins, it will ask for login and in use, it will again ask for login after 12 hrs. Hathway isp btw.

I sleep late at night. Around 1 AM. Then only login in the morning 8 AM. Sometimes I can't connect to Internet without login. Other times I can. It may depend on if my tab makes a connection during the time I was in standby mode.

P)
When I return in the evening from office, I need to login depending if someone else in my family were using the net.

So since other members of the family also use net, I can't accurately decide the time-out time.

sksundram said:
@vyom try learning CCNA. It's easy and fun. Download cbtnuggets video series on ICND 1 and 2.

Thanks for the suggestion. I will definitely want to watch those!

I see..

Vyom said:
Update: I am overwhelmed by the sheer number of settings that I can do on my router and perplexed with the terms like DHCP, DMZ, Statis Routing list, System Routing Table etc... etc...
Will need a lot of time and guidance to fully understand the concepts.

You will probably never need to touch 99% of them.

One month update:
So 4th of Feb was my one month with Pacenet. I am happy to say that its been a good experience for me until now. I am getting max of 1MBps download speeds on some torrents.

And connection is pretty stable. It went on to give me some problems for 2-3 days in the middle due to some technical upgradation. But since they acknowledged it on the login page, I assume it was just temporary.

According to Pacenet I used about 84 GB (both upload and download) in this one month. Not counting the bandwidth that I receive from LAN peers. Since for some reason bandwidth from local peers is not counted in the total usage. But my NetMeter says I used little over 120 GB which of course is counting LAN bandwidth too.

Overall I was happy to renew the plan for another month. :doublethumb:

dashing.sujay said:
You will probably never need to touch 99% of them.

You were right about this.

After three months update: Oh boy, Pacenet sucks.

On 1st of April, Pacenet celebrated fool's day. And internet was down. It came back only the next day.

Today, the whole day it's down again. Local Pacenet number doesn't respond. Global cc says everything fine at their end. And to contact local provider.

The plan is about to expire tomorrow. I am not planning to continue it.

Search for another broadband continues....

If you still need help.

Vyom said:
2. Can I do some tweak in the router itself that I don't need to manually login each time the session expires?

There is an internet connection configuration page on your router. Find it and configure/edit your active pvc connection. There will be a an option to choose between 'dial on demand' and 'always on' somewhere in there. The internet connection page will look something like this.

*i.imgur.com/RIaYeUo.jpg

Vyom said:
3. I quote for this:
So how exactly do we sense the packets through wireshark, and can router be tweaked to allow the packets?

The best thing you can do to acceleratre p2p traffic is to open a port for your p2p client. If you don't know how to open ports in the router i can help.

5. What steps you take to ensure that you always use HTTPS? Can someone steal the credentials if the pages I browse are not secure but the login was?
Eg: I login to TDF using secure page. But now I am browsing on HTTP.

You don't always have to be on https. It's only the login process that needs to be secure.

BTW bsnl here is now awesome. It all happened after I started registering complaints online. They would fix any issue immediately if i complain on there cc portal. I don't there is any better ISPs here. BSNL is as good as indian ISPs get.

Vyom said:
Search for another broadband continues....

Give spectrarnet a try.

dashing.sujay said:
Give spectrarnet a try.

Already contacted them before I had to opt for Pacenet. Talked them again, and then sent them this letter today:

Hi Spectanet

I inquired about a new connection at my location, but it was told that currently it can't be possible.
I inquired today also after few months, but the response is the same, that as soon as a connection could be established here I would be contacted.

But I request you to please acknowledge the enthusiasm of net users like me who desperately want to have a service of Internet that is not BS, which provide good plans and which have excellent customer care. Even without a connection of Spectranet I can see it meets all our needs.

So its a humble request to please establish your infrastructure at my area, and I can bet there would be a lot of customers banging at the doors of Spectranet trying to free from the shackles of stupid FUP's and poor CC.

Thanks in advance Spectranet. Hoping you arrive soon.

Googled Nextra after a friend advised. Sadly they also like Spectranet targets "Societies".

[MENTION=93672]Neuron[/MENTION]: Thanks for the reply, it would help me in future.

W

^^neuron is using bsnl pppoe connection & its settings have no relevance to cable broadband which you have used or will use.

[MENTION=77264]Vyom[/MENTION] - Spectranet for "societies" !; doesn't seem to be in my case. I don't live in one (New Ashok nagar).

You won't believe that I went straight to the shop who used to provide connection at 5pm, and at 6pm, my BB was ready to be used. \m/

does this use cyberoam/24online type of system?

dashing.sujay said:
[MENTION=77264]Vyom[/MENTION] - Spectranet for "societies" !; doesn't seem to be in my case. I don't live in one (New Ashok nagar).

You won't believe that I went straight to the shop who used to provide connection at 5pm, and at 6pm, my BB was ready to be used. \m/

That's probably because Spectranet already had its infrastructure in your area. In my case, where I live, they only provide connections to the area which are "well settled" perhaps. I wish they arrive soon.

Anyway, the guy from Pacenet came and after diagnosing came to the conclusion that the connector which connect wire to router was at fault.
I probably will continue pacenet only.

my Pacenet 512kbps demo pack is still active after 6 months. No one has come yet to collect money. !!!

Vyom said:
Anyway, the guy from Pacenet came and after diagnosing came to the conclusion that the connector which connect wire to router was at fault.
I probably will continue pacenet only.

So about 3 weeks after my last update, I am having second thoughts on my opinion of Pacenet. Remember how last time I came to a conclusion that router might be faulty? Well, ever since then my net haven't been stable. I was thinking maybe I need to change my router, but refrained myself in an attempt to make sure its the router which is at fault not the Pacenet connection.
Today net wasn't working again. So I plugged the wire directly to PC. Turns out Pacenet is down from server itself. Now I am not sure, this whole time, if it was the router which was faulty or was it the service of Pacenet which is not stable.

In worst case, both are at fault. Maybe Pacenet remains down sometimes, and other times my router misbehaves. I don't know how to reach to a conclusion now. I am thinking of buying a second router nevertheless, that would atleast help me narrow down the possibility.

I think members who want to know whether Pacenet is worth it, should sponsor me a good router like D-Link DIR-605L Wireless N300 Cloud Router!

Dont buy 2nd router. Check your router at some friends place. It will take only a while to set up but it will be worth it. Better than to get a new one just like that.

Piyush said:
Dont buy 2nd router. Check your router at some friends place. It will take only a while to set up but it will be worth it. Better than to get a new one just like that.

Only if router stops working altogether. Problem is it stops working randomly. And when it happens when I am in office (when my family uses it) I can't instantly check if Pacenet is at fault or router. When I return home, net works.
So, only way for me to check is to test on a 2nd router for atleast two days. And I don't know if any of my friend will have a spare wifi router.

Why not just ask them to plug the ethernet cable to PC ? I guess it can be done once you train them how to do it.

dashing.sujay said:
Why not just ask them to plug the ethernet cable to PC ? I guess it can be done once you train them how to do it.

Our rooms are in different floors. They live downstairs. And they use Internet wirelessly, from phone or from wifi receiver. It would be a lot of trouble if I tell them to plug cable directly in my room on my PC upstairs.
Besides LAN settings also have to be changed. When plugged in router, no IP addresses needs to be provided in LAN settings, while when plugged directly, all information, like IP address, Subnet Mark, Default Gateway needs to be set everytime.

Vyom said:
Our rooms are in different floors. They live downstairs. And they use Internet wirelessly, from phone or from wifi receiver. It would be a lot of trouble if I tell them to plug cable directly in my room on my PC upstairs.
Besides LAN settings also have to be changed. When plugged in router, no IP addresses needs to be provided in LAN settings, while when plugged directly, all information, like IP address, Subnet Mark, Default Gateway needs to be set everytime.

You can leave the LAN settings as it requires and it will still work if you use other source for net (say wifi). That way, just plug the cable and bingo.