Re: [Ekiga-list] Newbie configuration experiences...

[Terry Barnaby <terry1 beam ltd uk>]

Alec Leamas wrote:
> First of all: I actually got Ekiga 3.0.1 running to the point of a 
> working call to the echo service on my Fedora 10 box which is a Good 
> Thing. You are doing a great job!
>
> However, being a newbie I found it a little harder than it ought to be. 
> If it's an objective that Ekiga should be easy to setup, here are some 
> remarks:
>
> Sound device selection.
>
> - There is no support for testing the output devices
>   ("Play test sound") for output nor ringing device in
>   the device selection menu. I think it should.
>
> - On my Fedora box, some selections makes Ekiga really weird
>   e. g., it's possible to connect but not to disconnect.
>   The bad thing is that there is no user feedback indicating
>   that this is a problem with the sound devices, which makes
>   it hard to figure out what's going on.
>
> NAT traversal and router setup:
>
> - My router is a NAT router with the dreaded "Symmetric NAT".
>   There *is* an error message when Ekiga is started which
>   basically says that I have to configure the router manually.
>   The crucial term "Symmetric NAT" is *not* mentioned in this
>   message. I finally learned to start ekiga with debug output,
>   and grep for 'stun' to reveal this fact. This should really
>   easier, the information about "Symmetric NAT" should be
>   displayed to the user.
>
> - Once I understood that  my router was doing Symmetric NAT I
>   configured port forwarding according to the docs (dynamic,
>   triggered ports is not properly handled by my Thomson
>   router). I came to a point with working connect/disconnect
>   but no sound.
>
> - After some more reading, I understood that the stunnel
>   stuff was in the way. So I needed to disable stunnel. There
>   are no switches in the UI for this, and even in gconf
>   there is no "Use stunnel" option. What I did was to set
>   the stunnel host to a non-existing value. This created a
>   lot of error messages, and a working Ekiga... This should
>   be easier and more straightforward IMHO.
>
> The issue to setup Ekiga with a router doing symmetric NAT couldn't 
> really be out of the box, I understand that. But I still think this 
> process could be easier with better error messages and configuration 
> options. Or, maybe, a "Symmetric NAT" wizard?
>
> Last but not least, I shouldn't have taken the time to write this unless 
> I really appreciate what you are doing...
>
> --Alec
> _______________________________________________
> ekiga-list mailing list
> ekiga-list gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/ekiga-list
I second that.

One thing you may find, if you are using a Thomson ST 585 V6 router as I am, is
that once you have disabled STUN then the ST 585 appears to automatically
open the RTP ports for you. ie you don't need to manually set the router
to port forward them, at least on my setup ...
It seems to also forward them to the correct host (I have a number of systems
behind the ST586).
See my message "No Echo Test response: STUN Problem with Thomson ST585"

Cheers


Terry