Re: [Ekiga-list] remote video h323

[Shawn Adams <shawn_adams web de>]

Dennis

Apologies for the length of this, unsure how best to be clear about what
I'm trying to say. Please read through, the good parts are toward the end.

Dennis G. Brown wrote:
> Sip does not work at all for the user I'm working with and does not 
> work correctly from my computer either.  It works perfectly for me 
> with h323.

1st thought is FW/NAT issues.
H.323 happens to work a) your router is set properly for H.323
b) your router has an H.323 ALG c) the conf. system is assisting getting
around NAT/FW
> 
> We got a little further with her this morning.  She is able to 
> connect to the video conferencing system and enter the conference 
> number with the dialpad.  On my screen I see her name pop up but the 
> window is black.  I can hear her but she can't hear or see me.  So 
> here are the problems.
> 
> - she can't hear me.  Her speakers are working, I can hear her e-mail 
> prompts

your sound packets bouncing off her router or PC firewall. ?

you hear her e-mail prompts, but not her voice ?
Sounds like the audio SW device is capturing something, but not the
microphone.

> 
> - she can't see me.  When she pulls down the View menu the Remote 
> selection is grayed out
only a guess, the greyed out means no remote video is being received
(the ekiga experts can verify). if your PC is truly sending video -
probably also hitting her router or PC firewall and dropping.
(perhaps take a sniffer trace on your PC interface)


> 
> - I can't see her.  On her end she sees herself in the video window 
> so her camera is on and is displaying video.  It just isn't being 
> sent.
Again, video is probably stopping at FW or NAT.

these days, almost no ISPs purposely block SIP (would not surprise me
for some that offer SIP try to block any other VOIP - some corporations
do this)

> We've verified the correct Audio and Video settings.  The only other 
> thing I can think of is firewall issues.  We told the Windows 
> firewall to allow Ekiga through.  I haven't looked at other firewalls 
> (Google, Yahoo, etc.).

What exactly did you allow through ? as a test, I'd disable the FW
completely just for a minute to confirm/deny. I believe telling windows
to allow the ekiga.exe should be enough.

Remember - SIP uses 5060, and other ports STUN 3478

SIP also uses basically "random" ports to transfer voice and video
thereafter. So all these ports must be open for everything to work.

For example - when I use ekiga to register at ekiga.net, and place a
video call to the echo test at 500 ekiga net, I see the voice incoming
at port 5072, but the video H61 at port 5074

So for SIP to work over what is presumably a NAT connection at each end,
the NAT router (your DSL/cable modem router) needs to be "SIP aware" or
have a SIP ALG that allows it to know what to do with these strange
packets. Otherwise - based on the FW rules - they are dropped.

You can statically configure FW to allow all possible ports used by SIP,
and then configure your DSL router with static NAT to always get these
to your PC (both you and your lady friend)

Ekiga 3.X, during initial setup (druid ?) tries to configure FW/NAT
traversal,STUN, etc... automatically.

If ekiga is using STUN, then everything should be simplified for each of
your local firewalls. ( in ekiga 3.2.5 you can see this in the
ekiga.conf file, located in your user's profile directory)


so onto your real question, how to troubleshoot/fix this ?

* I'd start by looking at the config of each DSL router - is there some
parameter called "SIP" or "SIP ALG" or "VOIP" ?  enable it.

- if not, configure NAT to statically forward at 3478 and 5060-5062 to
your PC.

* Remove the ekiga config, run the config druid, and let ekiga detect
the best method. use the ekiga.net account at 1st, later you can add
whatever one you want.

* register to ekiga.net, use the echo test 500 ekiga net to test
voice/video.

if this works from each side, you can be pretty sure that at least the
local ends are OK.

* if possible, take a sniffer trace, and see which destination ports are
used for the voice and the video.

* add whatever accounts you'd like to use and try the video conf. system.

Hope this is helpful.

Best regards,

> 
> Any thoughts on how to troubleshoot are very much appreciated.  
> Remember this works fine for me.  We're dialing the same video 
> conferencing bridge and using the same software (Ekiga 3.2.6 Windows 
> version).