Re: [GnomeMeeting-list] Ekiga behind non-configurable symmetric NAT? - a FAQ

[Timo Jyrinki <timo jyrinki hut fi>]

On Mon, 13 Mar 2006 12:58:41 +0100 Damien Sandras <dsandras seconix com> wrote:

> http://www.ekiga.org/index.php?rub=3&pos=0&faqpage=x161.html#AEN163
> "If it reports "Symmetric NAT" and that you are not using GNU/Linux,
> then you are not part of the 99% of lucky users. You will have to
> forward UDP ports 5000 to 5100 to your internal machine. Run the test
> again, it should report "Cone NAT" or "Port Restricted NAT" and it will
> work."

Of course, this one was out of question because it requires the possibility of
configuring the NAT.

> If you can not forward ports:
> http://www.ekiga.org/index.php?rub=3&pos=0&faqpage=x161.html#AEN196
> "Please make sure you have read this FAQ correctly because it should
> work in all cases. The worst case is when you have to forward ports. If
> you can not forward ports, or if you do not want to do it, you have
> alternative solutions. For SIP, you can use SIPROXD as outbound proxy.
> For H.323, please configure the GNU Gatekeeper as a proxy."

If I can't configure the NAT server to forward ports, for sure I can't install
siproxd there either.

The point was to look from the ordinary users' perspective: it seems there is no
way to use Ekiga behind a symmetric NAT that has no port forwarding and that
cannot be configured by the user (the NAT server is owned by the ISP for example
or something similar).

So, I think it should be mentioned in the FAQ somehow that there are Internet
users which just cannot use Ekiga yet. Currently the FAQ would state that for
every situation there's a solution, but it does not seem like that for this kind
of network connection. Or, there are of course (always) solutions but they are
not implemented in Ekiga.

> TURN and ICE are great, but only if you have TURN servers proxying the
> RTP streams. Such servers do not exist yet, so it would not solve your
> problem.

Yes, I've understood that those solutions/standards are not really "there" yet,
when compared eg. with STUN (which unfortunately doesn't solve the problem for
all NATs).

-Timo