TANDBERG D14049.01 User Manual

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D 14049.01
07.2007
07
About STUN
STUN is a network protocol that enables a SIP or H.323 client 
to communicate via UDP or TCP from behind a NAT firewall.  
The VCS Border Controller can be configured to provide two 
types of STUN services to traversal clients.  These services are 
STUN Binding Discovery and STUN Relay.
STUN Services
STUN Relay
The STUN Relay service (formerly known as TURN) allows a 
client to ask for data to be relayed to it from specific remote 
peers via the relay server and through a single connection 
between the client and the relay server.
How it works
A client behind a NAT firewall sends a STUN Allocate request 
to the VCS Border Controller which is acting as the STUN relay 
server.  The sending of this request opens a binding on the 
firewall. Upon receipt of the request, the VCS Border Controller 
opens a public IP port on behalf of the client, and reports back 
to the client this IP address and port, as well as details of the 
firewall binding.  The client can then provide this IP address and 
port to other systems which may want to reach it.  
The client can restrict the remote address and ports from 
which the relay should forward on media.  Any incoming calls to 
this IP address and port on the VCS server are relayed via the 
allocated binding on the NAT to the client.
STUN Binding Discovery
The STUN Binding Discovery service provides information back 
to the client about the binding allocated by the NAT firewall 
being traversed.  
How it works
A client behind a NAT firewall sends a STUN discovery request 
via the firewall to the VCS Border Controller, which has been 
configured as a STUN discovery server.  Upon receipt of the 
message, the VCS Border Controller responds to the client with 
information about the allocated NAT binding, i.e. the public IP 
address and the ports being used.
The client can then provide this information to other systems 
which may want to reach it, allowing it to be found even though 
it is not directly available on the public internet.
The endpoint will only be reachable if the firewall has 
the Endpoint-Independent Mapping behavior as 
described in RFC 4787 [
]
About ICE
Currently, the most likely users of STUN services are ICE 
endpoints. 
ICE (Interactive Connectivity Establishment) is a collaborative 
algorithm that works together with STUN services (and other 
NAT traversal techniques) to allow clients to achieve firewall 
traversal. The individual techniques on their own may allow 
traversal in certain network topologies but not others. Also 
some techniques maybe less efficient than others, involving 
extra hops (e.g. STUN Relay). 
ICE involves the collecting of potential (candidate) points 
of contact (IP address and port combination) via each of 
the traversal techniques, the verification of peer-to-peer 
connectivity via each of these points of contact and then the 
selection of the “best” successful candidate point of contact 
to use.
For detailed information on the base STUN protocol and 
the Binding Discovery service, refer to “Session 
Traversal Utilities for (NAT) (STUN)” [
].
For detailed information on the STUN Relay service, refer to 
“Obtaining Relay Addresses from Simple Traversal Underneath 
NAT (STUN)” [
]. 
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