At 08:50 14/03/01 -0500, Gibson, Brian wrote:
>OK. Let's go on the premise that we are talking about internal users that
>want to get files off of Napster.
>
>How does the client that wishes to download files tell the client with the
>files to change ports to a port they can reach the client on(assuming that
>inbound connections are not an option)?
assume I'm a home guy connecting to napster.
assume you're behind a fw and connected to napster.
assume I want to download foo.mpeg from your machine.
your client is connected to the napster server which knows you
have foo.mpeg and that you're behind a FW. It then ask me to open
a port and listen on, and asks your client to upload the file to my
machine.
in other words, it's done the reverse way. instead of me downloading the
file from your host (which requires an inbound connection for you), you
upload it to my machine.
This works because one of the 2 particpating members is not behind a FW.
The situation when both guys are behind a FW is harder. But if napster want,
they can simply use their server as a gateway between the two (one client
uploads
the file to the server, and the second client downloads it from the server),
but this makes the napster server a central point of distribution, which is
bad for perfs...
cheers,
mouss
-
[To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
"unsubscribe firewalls" in the body of the message.]
