Re: [GnomeMeeting-list] Gatekeeper

[Damien Sandras <dsandras seconix com>]

le dim 08-09-2002 à 20:00, Patrick Fromberg a écrit :
> Damien Sandras schrieb:
> 
> what I mean, that an alias, like patrick is quite useless, if I can not 
> qualify it. It makes sense to qualify it with the the gatekeeper. 
> Qualifiing it with the ils server is ok, but only deferres the problem, 
> because the ils server itselfe also needs a unique address and this 
> address can not be the IP-Address, at least as long as we live in a bad 
> world in need for firewalls.

I think you are making a small confusion between gatekeeper and gateway.

> 
> I dont confuse gatekeeper and ils server but I might confuse gatekeeper 
> and gateway.
> for me, the gatekeeperproxy was something, that
> 
> 1. can differentiate between two distinct users with the same ip address
> 2. act as a proxy to make it possible to call one of many users behind a 
> firewall.
> 3. Provide a callto url to make use of Points 1 and 2.
> 
> gnugk does 1 and 2. Now I learn, that I am wrong about Point 3. But 
> then, what thingy provides me point 3 and what is a gatekeeper good for 
> if it meets point 1 and 2 only. Two users can impossibly be registered 
> to the same gatekeeperproxy, if they are behind different firewalls. 
> This will be the case in 99% of the long distance gnomemeeting sessions. 
> Also, a user can not register to a different gatekeeper on every call he 
> makes, this would be a qualifing procedure versus qualifing callto syntax.


You are right about this. The normal role of a gatekeeper is not (in its
first sense) to do proxying. A gatekeeper is something, on a LAN (or
network) that can control calls in its zone. All users in the zone
register to the gatekeeper, and it gives a convenient way to call people
without knowing their IP. The gatekeeper can also controls calls, proxy
the media streams, do some billing for calls, refuse calls if the
bandwidth foreseen by the admin is reached....

The callto URL doesn't permit to specify a GK name inside it, at least
to my knowledge. If you are calling something like xxx blabla com, it is
that blabla.com is a gateway. A gateway is a pure gateway without the
additional services of a gatekeeper. I do not know any linux
implementation of a gateway. I don't think it is possible to use that
type of URL with a gatekeeper (but I can be wrong, microsoft is not very
precise about callto URLs) and I do not think that it would work from
the internet through the LAN without adding huge security holes.

For me, the best solution is currently RSIP (NAT being a buggy right
now, even with the patches). Your main concern is that you can't have
several users behind your router, and call them. Well, I would say that
it is the same limitation as for a webserver. You can only have one
running on port 80 behind your router, but if you are changing the
listening port of GM, you can say that user A will listen on port 1720,
user B on port 1721, and you will thus have an easy URL for your users.
Damien will be available at URL callto://myrouter.com:1721 for example.

Not terribly worse to remember than something like xxx blabla com 
Moreover, future versions of GM, will be able to call such users (with
different ports than 1720) directly from the ILS server.

That way, callto://ils.seconix.com/dsandras seconix com will always
reach me, even if Im behind a router, listening on port 1723.

> 
> I am terribly confused.
> 
> Patrick
> 
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-- 
Damien Sandras 

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