On Fri, Apr 21, 2006 at 09:40:06PM +0200, Thomas King wrote:
> Dear Freenet Hackers,
> I occasionally use Freenet and I am highly interested in this technology (not 
> only because of my studies). However, during my usage I experienced a few 
> network problems due to NATs.
> 
> So, I think about to apply for Google's Sommer of Code with the following 
> proposal:
> - Adding STUN-support (RFC 3489) to Freenet to automatically collect NAT 
> related information. These information will be used to automatically 
> configure Freenet.

We already have basic NAT hopping support (including on network IP
address detection); more will be coming... The main remaining problem is
the combination of NATs and dynamic IPs.
Proposed measures in the near future:
- Remembering the last detected address for each node across restarts
  (separately from its claimed address).
- ARKs. If you can connect to one node, it can tell your other peers
  what your new address is via an Address Resolution Key or similar
  mechanism.
Possible future measures:
- UP&P - but I think it will only help a small minority.
- Rendezvous transports (Email, DNS, IM, etc).

Now, with regards to STUN, this is a mechanism whereby you can contact a
well known server to discover your own IP address, and those of any
NATs, in order to do hole punching? Note that if you can contact ANY of
your peers, you can discover your IP anyway, tell your other peers what
your IP is, and connect to them... Nonetheless, STUN support does sound
useful (provided that STUN servers are widely deployed, that STUN clients
are widely deployed, and that the way Freenet uses it will not
distinguish it from other STUN clients). Is it feasible to do this in
Java? Does it require raw packets? And is there already a (java) library
out there to do it? (Less duplicated code => less bugs)!

> - Adding UPnP-support to Freenet to handle UPnP-enabled NAT devices for a 
> more 
> convenient user experience.

The big issue with UP&P is that it is far from universal. It is blocked
by default by Windows XP's firewall (from SP2 onwards), and it is often
turned off... is there a realistic chance of UP&P support helping more
than a few percent of our users?
> 
> What do you think about my thoughts?
> 
> Is any of the developers available to be my mentor?

I will gladly answer any questions any would-be freenet developer has on
how the code works in order to assist them in building useful features. If
you want to apply for Google SoC then by all means do, but it looks like
there will be some competition.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Thomas King
-- 
Matthew J Toseland - toad at amphibian.dyndns.org
Freenet Project Official Codemonkey - http://freenetproject.org/
ICTHUS - Nothing is impossible. Our Boss says so.
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