Re: [GnomeMeeting-list] Connection to servers

[Malcolm Caldwell <malcolm caldwell ntu edu au>]

On Tue, 2003-12-09 at 17:56, Damien Sandras wrote:
> > I think the best solution for the whole ILS mess is to use an open
> > source gatekeeper and get it to output a list of users registered.
> > 
> > opengk already has a html admin interface - with it you can see who is
> > registered (and unregister them etc) It could easily modified to:
> >      1. output a new html page with h323:// links (and no unregister
> >         links)
> >      2. outout a xml page that gnomemeeting could use to do its
> >         addressbook
> > 
> > Another approach which I started to work on hacked the ndk and pretended
> > to be an ils server but really just returned current people on the
> > gatekeeper.  It was a bit ugly.
> > 
> > ils is bad - it is time to drop it and go to more standard approaches.
> > 
> 
> I fully agree that ILS is bad, and I already have thought replacing it a
> lot of time, but I see some problems with the Gatekeeper approach :
> 1) Basing the list of users on the html output of opengk is not better
> than ILS because we replace one broken standard by something
> non-standard and specific to one type of gatekeeper and to gnomemeeting

In a half sort of way anyway.  (The half being that all h323 clients can
register to a gatekeeper, and any pc based client can view the webpage).

I agree it is still a hack.

> 2) GnomeMeeting currently is based on H.323, but SIP is planned in the
> future. Gatekeepers are H.323-only while ILS is neutral and could have
> all types of users registered and callable (H.323 only, SIP only, H.323
> and SIP)

I did not realise that ILS is used with SIP.

> If we want to replace ILS, the best imho is to migrate to pure LDAP for
> the online directory. 

If we define the problem we can perhaps get a better idea
This 'directory' should
     1. Allow registrations
     2. Allow lookups for callto or h323://
     3. Allow searching for a user named fred etc.
     4. Let a user know if someone is online etc
     5. Work with sip and h323

For h323 I believe 1, 2 & 4 are best done with a gatekeeper.
Ldap is probably a good protocol for 3.
I don't know sip that well but I believe a sip proxy or registrar will
also allow for 1, 2 & 4.

I think that a good approach is an ldap backend into a h323 gatekeeper
or sip proxy.  For h323 we have opengk.  For sip I think ser from
http://www.iptel.org/ should be able to be made work.

As well as the ldap backend there can be an ils backend, a http backend
etc.  This is all fairly easy to code and would allow maximum
compatibility:  Any client can be made to work with any other client -
if it does ils then let it do ils lookups.  If it does ldap lookups let
it do ldap lookups.  If it does not do either, let the user use the
web.  Let any user call any user who is registered with the gatekeeper
via simply calling them by name or e.164 number.

Limitations
     1. You can't specify as many things about yourself via h323
        registrations.  (eg location, willingness to speak etc)
     2. Limited to using specific gatekeepers or sip proxies

But how much of a limitiation is 2?  At the moment, for a netmeeting
user to call a gnomemeeting user they must both be using
ils.secondix.org OR the gnomemeeting must be hacked.

(1 could be hacked upon in a few ways)

Also, all the open gk could be given an ldap backend.  Also, other
commercial gatekeepers can worked into this using a wrapper.

Even if, for compatibility, it is decided that ils support is needed in
gnomemeeting, I still believe the preferred method of doing this stuff
should be as I have outlined.