a newbie's guide to setting up and using DC++

Special thanks to Aaron, who is admin on a hub and helped a lot explaining what is happening when you use DC++, and why... and added a lot of useful stuff in this document!

 Note. DC++ has only been released for the Windows platform. If you are a linux user you may want to look at the following urls:

Start by getting DC++ - download the newest version from:

It currently comes in a zip file, extract the contents to a directory of your choice, fine the DC++ executable, and fire it up....

Now, there are a couple of things I really recommend you do right away, before you rush in to the file sharing excitement... They will save you a lot of hassle later on!

From File, select 'Settings' and sort out the following :

In the 'General' tab :

Nick - Choose what you want to be known as in the filesharing world - some hub operators frown on silly names, all caps names, numbers, etc so to avoid any hassle, choose a fairly sensible name - avoid spaces if possible as well.

In the 'Description' box, for your first week or so using DC++ put NEWBIE in here, people will be more likely to take time explaining to you what you did wrong if you make a mistake - if ops do not know you are a newbie, they may well just kick you off the hub for doing something silly.

'Connection' - choose whatever best matches your web connection.

More about the 'passive and active options later.

In the 'Downloads' tab :

Sensibly enough, in the Downloads directory path, put the path where you want downloads to go when you get them from other folks.

Unfinished files - I'd recommend having a subdirectory of your downloads directory here, it makes all sorts of things easier later on.

Download slots - on my cable connection, I've not needed to put a limit on these - perhaps you will find you need to if you have a slow web connection, but best suggestion is to leave it at 0 and see if you have severe problems with download speeds - if so, try setting at 3, and then fine tune up or down depending on how things look to you.

HTTP Proxy - I've not needed to set this up, same for the 'Public hubs list address', the default was fine. For reference, this only proxies the http connection used for downloading the public hub list, not the DC++ connection itself. The DC++ and proxies topic is quite a large one, and so we'll ignore it for now.

Sharing tab :

VERY IMPORTANT! This is the path to the area where the things you are sharing with the world must go... many hubs have minimum amounts of data you should be sharing before they let you in, so have at least something in there... try about 100 meg, that is enough for a lot of hubs -have a quick word with an op as soon as you connect to a hub and ask them, they are usually fairly kind if you talk to them first and a lot less kind if they spot you breaking the hub rules and have to kick you out. I'll explain how you talk to the ops, and the rest of the hub, in a minute.

ALSO VERY IMPORTANT : This should NEVER be the same directory as your downloads are going in to - other folks do not appreciate trying to download incomplete files, keep your downloads and shares separate - move downloads into this area when they are completed, not before - or be prepared to get chucked off hubs and banned for annoying the other users.

In the 'Appearance' Tab - muck about to your heart's content, the defaults are fine for me but if you have a pressing need for lilac text on a yellow background, knock yourself out...

'Logs and Sound' Tab - if you feel like keeping records of all your online conversations in the DC++ world, set up paths here - if you really can't see the point in keeping all that junk, leave them empty - entirely personal choice, as is the sounds bit - but when they say it's an annoying noise, they are not joking....

Advanced tab - I would highly recommend you tick "automatically search for alternate download locations", unless you are a masochist this is very useful as it allows DC++ to examine the files waiting in your queue and search for them in the hub. Most useful if the user you were downloading from goes offline! Apart from that setting leave the others at the defaults, unless you find problems downloading or uploading. If you see something that looks wrong to you when you are connected to a hub, chat to an op first, before you tinker with these.

OK... almost ready to go .... But remember the Passive/Active options mentioned earlier? If you have a direct internet connection you can use active mode, if not use passive mode. If you don't know about your connection try active, if that doesn't work change to passive. I have written a quick guide at the end of this document for those that wish to know more or wish to use active mode when it doesn't work as standard.

So how do you connect? First you need to know the address of a hub you might be interested in - Either from the File menu, select the 'Public Hubs' entry and see which ones take your fancy and if you see one double click on it - or given that we are RPG fanatics, the best hub I've found to date, by MILES, is rpgbookz.no-ip.org (IT WAS rpgbookz.dyndns.org) which is not in the public list at present. To get to this one choose 'Favourite Hubs' from the File menu, click on 'New', and if you are lazy like me stick the hub name in the three boxes Name, Address and Description. Works fine, and you know what the hub is about so it does the trick for me.... Click OK, and the hub is now in your list - double click the hub name, and you'll start trying to connect... and assuming the hub is up, and you have all the other bits right, all sorts of thing happen :

A window opens up telling you how your connection attempt is going, and with luck in a few seconds you are connected : now the fun begins...

Most hubs have rules, and in most cases they appear on screen as soon as you connect - READ THEM! There is no appeal if you mess up, the operators on the hub are not there to be nice, they are there to make the damn thing work properly - many are nice and pleasant, but they are not obliged to be, and if some fool turns up breaking the rules they are not likely to view them kindly...

If you are told to PM or private message someone, or a bot, to get the rules, look for the name concerned in the panel on the right hand side of the window (the user list) - once you see the name you need to contact, right click on it, and you get a menu - choose 'Send Private Message', another window appears with a box where you type your 'conversation', do what the hub rules say (please be exact....) and you should get information back at you. On rpgbooks, you get the rules by sending the message !rules in a private message (or PM) to Lucita - a bot that gives automated responses.. Do it right away, then click on the tab labelled with the hub name - in our case rpgbookz and scans... this is the main hub window, again there is a line near the bottom where you can type, and interact with the other hub users... tell the folks there hello, you are new to DC++, and ask them to make allowance while you get the hang of it... they are mostly nice folks, don't bite too much, and if you are stuck ask - someone is pretty likely to help out or answer your question. Stay silent and blunder about, and you might do something that gets you kicked off the hub (temporarily thrown off for a minor rules breach) so don't stay silent!

Among the icon on the top of the DC++ screen is one like a magnifying glass, called oddly enough Search - click it, it's pretty obvious how you use it... the only thing to note is the 'Search options - only users with free slots' tick box - tick it and you only search people currently connected to the hub who have space free for you to use downloading stuff, choose the files you want and the download will probably start - don't tick it and anything the hub
database matches with your search is listed, but if you choose to download the file you'll put it in your download queue, and if you connect to the hub when the owner of the file you are after comes on, you'll likely start downloading what you were after.

If you try a search, and nothing at all shows up, go back to the Settings / General tab, and go to passive mode or active mode - shift to whichever you are not in currently and retry the search. Should work, any problems ask the other hub users, they are likely to know what's up and how to sort it out.

From the 'File menu, you can also see a 'View download queue' option, choose this and you get a window telling you how your downloads are doing, what's left to download and such... you will soon have a damn huge queue in here, don't worry about it, it will all arrive eventually...

Couple of bits of 'good behaviour' - when you add to or reorganise the stuff in your 'shared' area, type /refresh in the command line box when you next run DC++ (or straight away if you have kept DC++ running while you sorted things out), that refreshes your list so anyone looking for stuff sees an up to date listing from you.
Try not to reorganise your shared areas while others have downloads in progress, you'll muck their transfer up and annoy them no end... and annoying other users is a good way to get kicked off a hub. Try give your shared files names that really describe what they are - people searching appreciate understandable filenames so their searches find stuff, so don't call a file Silver Princess if the module involved is Palace of the Silver Princess - use the full name, and also perhaps add AD&D to the file title so anyone searching on AD&D finds it....

And basically, that should have you up and running with DC++ - the rest you'll pick up as you go along, like I have ;-)

Quick Tips.

Organise your share.
Try to make sure your share has some kind of file structure. Folder names are included in DC searches, so organise all your Music into an MP3's folder, your Forgotten Realms sourcebooks into a Forgotten Realms folder, which is inside an AD&D folder and so forth.

Pick your shares carefully.
Try to avoid sharing the root directory of hard drives. Although you may not know it you will be sharing hidden system files (on XP this includes the Recycler and System Volume Information directories).

Do not be a stingy sharer.
Other people want your files! :) remember this is a sharing COMMUNITY. If you enjoy the experience then help out everyone and share some more. This will also help you get into hubs with a minimum share limit (often 1 gig). Many DC++ users find themselves buying brand new hard drives to fit all their files on!

Do not share system/installed files.
Many people share installed games, or their program files folder. I doubt any hubs allow this practice. Protect your installed files!

Do not share incomplete downloads.
Just don't do it! If you "have to" then make SURE they are in a labelled folder. Though you should never have to.

Do not ask for files in hub.
In my experience ops will get very VERY impatient with users asking "does anyone have xxxx". Mostly they will answer "USE THE %$!!£ SEARCH BUTTON!!!!!!!!!" or something similar. If you have searched to no avail, make sure you include this in your question. For example. "Hi everyone, I'm trying to find a rare file, it's not turning up in a search so I'm just wondering if anyone happens to have it stashed somewhere?".

Do NOT ask to be an Op.
Ops are chosen because they are diligent, regular, helpful and so forth. If you ask, you will NOT get!

Do not complain about rules.
You're getting something for free with DC++, if you dont like the way the hub works, move on.

Do not cancel peoples downloads.
You wouldn't like it.. If you have to go offline send a private message (you can do this in the active download/upload list by right clicking the users name) explaining.

Active/Passive Connection Guide.

The difference between active and passive connections is quite fundamental in networking, but it is also quite a science in it's own right. It is not something you need to know about to use DC++, if you do wish to know more, there are plenty of internet resources.

If you have a direct connection to the internet you can freely use Active mode. This enables all features of DC, searching, chatting, downloading, uploading etc.
Examples of active connections are:
Dial Up Modems
ISDN
Single-User Cable modems
Single-User DSL modems
Single-User Satellite
And so forth. Basically any connection where you are the only user. You might be lucky enough to be part of a college/work network which is fully routed. But anyway...
You can check the active connection and be done with it!

If you have a shared internet connection, which is not fully routed (there is a very high chance of this) for example a home DSL connection using a NAT router shared to two or more PC's, then you will need to use Passive mode to make DC++ work "out of the box" so to speak. Passive mode should allow you to chat, upload, download and search, BUT passive users can only connect to active users. This means you will never be able to access the share of another passive DC user. Quite a drawback!

But have no fear! It is possible to use active mode on a NAT connection, although you must have access to your router.
You must forward a port in your routers NAT setup, I cannot give you direct instructions on how to do this, read your router manual for them. The port you are looking to forward is 412 (some will tell you 1412 is the correct port, this IS the port DC++ uses, and I'm quite sure that works fine, but i personally use the Neo-Modus standard port 412 so I can only give 100% confirmation on that), you want to forward it TCP and UDP. The TCP stream handles upload, download, and chat, whereas the UDP stream handles searching. If you can only pick one of the two, pick TCP, though you should be able to forward both. You will be forwarding these ports to your computers local IP address. This is the address you use over the LAN. If you haven't specified one in your LAN TCP/IP settings then i suggest you do so.
Once you have the ports forwarded successfully you must configure DC++.
Open the settings dialogue, in the general tab you will see two radio buttons for Connection Settings. Check the one for Active. You must also fill in the two boxes for IP and Port. Port you know, it is the port you forwarded on your router. 412 (or 1412 if you decided to go for that). IP is NOT your LAN IP, it is your EXTERNAL internet IP. If you don't know this there are tools online that can tell you. Once you have filled in those boxes you are ready to rock and roll! Shut down DC and start it up again for the connections settings to take effect. Make sure you can join a hub, then make sure you can chat by saying hello. The rest of the tests are up to you, but hopefully all should be well. If it's not then shift back to Passive mode until you can find the problem!

Good luck to you all and enjoy your experience with Direct Connect!!