Using eMule Safely & Securely - IP Blocking

March 25, 2008 by sharky

Several experts have rated eDonkey as the second largest contributor to Internet-based piracy, behind BitTorrent. Currently, with over 4 million users worldwide at any given time sharing roughly 500 million files, few can question its success.

The eDonkey (eD2k) network has forever been an easy target and a brunt of punishment for anti-piracy organizations. Anti-P2P groups (MediaSentry and MediaDefender - to name just two) have flooded the network with bogus files, and filled the network with rogue users that share nothing but misery. They’ve even managed to shut down high-profile eDonkey servers from all corners of the globe, and set up their own ‘fake servers’ in an attempt to marginalize the filesharing.

As a counterattack, eMule users can incorporate two preventative measures - IP Blocking, and the use of known good eDonkey servers (serverlists). When combined, they provide a high level of protection against most threats.

IP Blocking & eMule

IP Blocking can be implemented into eMule through a “blocklist” file called IPFilter.dat. The ipfilter.dat file is a database (IP Blocklist) of known bad IP addresses, typically those belonging to anti-P2P groups, unknown IPs, bogon IPs, and other potentially-harmful IPs. This is similar to the IP blocklists commonly used by PeerGuardian software, and lists made available through BlueTack.

Installing ipfilter.dat & eMule:

Here are the procedures for adding IP Blocklists to eMule.

1.The link to the most current ipfilter.zip file is located here at the www.emule-mods.de website. The most up-to-date version is 128. Click on “ipfilterv.0128.zip”.

You’ll then be redirected to a file hosting site in order to download the ZIP file. After downloading, unzip (or drag ‘n drop) the ipfilter.dat file into your installed eMule directory (C:\Program Files\eMule).

2.Launch eMule, and click on the TOOLS menu icon. Select IP Filter… from the list.

3.Click on the “Append” button:

4.Now, browse to the ipfilter.dat file that you extracted from the ZIP file, and click “Open” once found:

5.The IP Filter window should now update and appear as below. Click “Save”, then click “Close” to finish importing (appending) the ipfilter.dat.

To verify that it’s working, a message will appear in the bottom left corner of eMule, like this:

By default, eMule v0.48a (the official client) is not pre-loaded with an ipfilter.dat file, and this process must be done manually (as explained above). Some exceptions to this are certain eMule “mods” that automatically connect to an online IP filter database, although this is not a recommended approach: It is known that there are some ‘bad’ IP filter databases that will add YOU to the list, preventing you from connecting to other eDonkey clients and/or KAD. Stick to the above method for best results.

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