SAR715 Support Pages: MSN Messenger File Transfer

Is it possible to send files with MSN Messenger on a NAT setup?

It is possible to send files with MSN Messenger on a NAT setup. However, there are a couple of requirements in order to get this to work:

• a UPnP-enabled operating system (Windows XP or Windows Me);
• a working UPnP configuration (see Universal Plug and Play);
• MSN Messenger 5 or 6.

UPDATE (14 August 2003)
The latest firmware version includes an ALG for MSN Messenger file transfer, which may render this guide unnecessary. If this is not the case, this guide still remains valid.

Will this work with Windows Messenger?

Windows Messenger 4.x does not support UPnP-enabled file transfers. Windows Messenger 5 is currently in the beta stage and as a beta tester, I can confirm that it does support UPnP. Windows Messenger only applies to Windows XP users, and so until it is released publicly, MSN Messenger 5 or 6 are the current options for all users.

What else do I need to do?

I have found that file transfer fails if a manual port forwarding rule is not created when using MSN Messenger 5. This leads me to believe that UPnP is still not entirely perfected in the current firmware. MSN Messenger 6 will not require a manual port forwarding rule as in addition to its UPnP support, it has full support for NAT.

Navigate to the IP address of the router in a browser such as Internet Explorer. Select Security from the Advanced Configuration option on the left-hand menu. Under Security Interfaces, select Advanced NAT Configuration followed by Add Reserved Mapping. Use the following settings:

This will only allow one file to be transferred at a time. In order to send more than one file simultaneously, add further port forwarding rules in the same way for the range 6891-6900.

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