Clarity on UE4 network connections

Development Programming & Scripting Multiplayer & Networking
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1

Hi there

I would like to understand how and when UE4 establishes network connections in a packaged game (Shipping and Dev). I’d love a dev to shed some light into the following questions:

  • When does UE4 establish a network connection (To epicgames or anywhere else)?
  • For what purpose is the connection used?
  • How can I configure (turn on / off) the action leading to a network connection?

An overview of the above info in table format would be greatly appreciated.

Here’s an example of an intercepted connection attempt:

199.255.40.68 Reverse DNS Name ec2.epicgames.com Established by /Users/mbo/Documents/Unreal Projects/RealisticRendering/MacNoEditor/Engine/Binaries/Mac/UE4Game-Mac-Shipping.app/Contents/MacOS/UE4Game-Mac-Shipping Process ID 55675

And here’s an example (log entry) for such a connection attempt:

Here’s the log excerpt I suspect to be relevant here:

[2014.04.07-14.28.03:197][ 3]LogEpicSurvey:Warning: EnumerateFiles request failed. Invalid response. code=403 error=
AccessDeniedAccess DeniedF9D12941ABAF7CF7tQCLDqSZ6WY0t9KI1L7AjJVNIOP1HoLKFJL4EFVRZHKCm05hjRsLtZRT0H1GdE3ocpZx9UBl2Wk=
[2014.04.07-14.28.03:245][ 4]LogHttp:Warning: connectionDidFinishLoading: 0x7fa4ca6cb980

The source seems to be “LogEpicSurvey”. The 403 is probably due to my firewall blocking the request.

Cheers,
Michael

2

Hello IMX,

Sorry for the delay in responding. This is a pretty big and technical question so I had some of the Devs here take a look at the question and they were able to give lot’s of information on the subject!

Here is a rundown of all the various services that could make connections that I can see so far:

• HTTP subsystem

  • Uses standard http ports

  • Can be disabled by setting bEnableHttp to false in the
    engine.ini file: [HTTP]
    bEnableHttp=false

• UDP Transport for UDP messaging system

  • UDP 6666 can be overridden in Engine.ini in the
    /Script/UdpMessagingSettings
    section.

  • It is currently not documented, but the available settings can be found
    in UUdpMessagingSettings

  • Can be disable by disabling the UDP messaging plug-in

• Gameplay replication

  • UDP 7777 (but can be changed in the ini files)
  • These connections are initiated when you connect to another server,
    usually via the “open” console
    command, or through UI in your game
    that may drive this under the hood
  • LAN beacons will communicate on port 14001, but again won’t happen
    unless this is driven by connecting
    to servers through open or UI, etc.

Hope this helps!

-Max B.

3

Hi Max

This really does help, thanks!

In addition to that, can you also clarify on what the connections to “ec2.epicgames.com” and the connections to “.cloudfront" actually do? I get these connection attempts each time I load a level into the editor. The "ec2.” connection, I also get each time i launch the packaged game.

Best regards,
Michael

4

Hey Michael,

What you are seeing is the News Feed in the Editor fetching content from the cloud content servers. It currently polls for updates every 15 minutes or so. This feature was added in 4.1.

5

Thanks! That resolves it for me.