MVP not booting unable to locate gui server using firestarter firewall

[steve909]

I hope this helps, as I've been reading a lot of posts relating to problems with MVPs not loading the .bin file, or unable to locate the gui server. I knew the firewall was at fault as the MVP will boot when the firewall is switched off.
I'm using firestarter firewall on ubuntu 9.10, but I'm presuming this should be similar for most firewalls:

Either allow/open the necessary ports to enable the MVP to talk to the server, follow this post to know which ports: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...335#post105335
My Sage.Properies file said 'discovery port 8270' so I had also opened this. What I've done while testing is just to allow all connections from the MVP (but it still wouldn't boot). So...

In the Firestarter gui go to edit>preferences>advanced options then uncheck the box called 'Block Broadcasts from external network'. The MVP booted no problem with the firewall enabled once the server could respond to it's broadcast.
Now the MVP is running I've re-checked the box as I believe this response is only needed during bootup (don't quote me on that fact), and all is working fine, with firewall protecting the server.

This is a few hours of testing/trudging up and down to the server/swearing so I hope it helps someone else.