🚀 go-pugleaf

Walter Roberson wrote:
> 
> In article <3FCC5D1A.6ADAA453@welho.compromised.invalid>,
> Lassi =?iso-8859-1?Q?Hippel=E4inen?=
>          <lassi.hippelainen@welho.compromised.invalid> wrote:
> :NAT is not a solution, it is a problem. With NAT boxes you can't have
> :peer-to-peer connections. Only the client-server model works. Each time
> :you want a direct connection, you have to use a bridging server provided
> :by your ISP, at a fee. And that server may become a bottleneck and a
> :single point of failure. The perfect target for DoS.
> 
> A non-trivial problem with peer-to-peer networks is the discovery
> protocol: how does one find out the address and port of another
> installation without using a central registry? Once you have solved
> that, then if your NAT box allows the creation of translations
> that are not restricted as to who connects to them, then you
> have no more problem then before.

The proposed solution is to use SIP (Session Initiation Protocol)
servers as meeting points. That works as long as your temporary address
persists. But how long is that?

> It isn't NAT itself that is the problem for peer-to-peer: the
> problem is NAT implimentations that do not permit inside systems
> to create connections that are accessible by random outside hosts.

Push services have problems with firewalls, and peer-to-peer needs a
push component to start the session (the equivalent of a phone ringing).
Negotiating a path through firewalls is easier, if the addresses and
port numbers remain the same end-to-end.

> And the work-around is not using bridging server "provided by
> your ISP, at a fee": the work-around is to extend the discovery
> protocol to dynamically find a machine that is willing to
> act as a bridging server. Not -everything- is behind blocking
> NAT implimentations.

But the operators want to built walled gardens. And currently they can
enforce them.

If you were running IPv6, you would have a stable global address, and
wouldn't need those bridges at all. DNS could handle the
name-IP-mapping.

-- Lassi