Re: Send data using tcp/udp to devices behind NAT - UDP Hole Punching

[Ross Bencina <rossb-lists@...>]

On 24/02/2012 6:44 PM, Stelios M. wrote:
> The trick is to be able to find out the remote end's IP. In order to do
> this, you will need a centralized server to which all peers will
> connect. This way the central server will know the public IP for each
> node. When a node request a connection to another peer the central
> server will pass the public IP and and port number to both peers for the
> target node.

I wonder is there any generic service that could be used for this.

I've implemented this kind of "public IP address and port sharing" 
server before, but it is really quite tedious to have to set up, run and 
maintain such a thing (unless it already is needed for other parts of 
the app).

I'm wondering whether it couldn't be piggybacked of some other existing 
network infrastructure, IRC for example. A simple IRC client could 
connect to a known channel on a known IRC server and exchange IP and 
port numbers there (encrypted if needed).

I guess HTTP would be simple too if you had an HTTP client stack.

Ross.