Arch Linux

zacariaz

Member

From: Denmark

Registered: 2012-01-18

Posts: 539

Re: [no longer relevant] Selfhosted Dropbox alternative

Well that's the problem really isn't it? Mr. Smith and Mr. Anderson can't communicate directly, thus all traffic has to go through Mr. Langley. In my work, Mr. Langley would simply SMS the phone number of Mr. Smith to Mr. Anderson and vise versa.

I guess the easiest explanation would be to say that neither Smith nor Anderson are able to receive call?

(I really need to get access to that router)

LOL...this will be my last reply on this topic prior a mod moves this to "Threads leading to nowhere"

To keep the example:
Mr. Anderson (external PC) wants to call Mr. Smith (home server) via cell phone but unfortunately cell phones do not work for Mr. Smith because he lives beyond a mountain (Router plus firewall which does not allow external access to internal services). So the work around for Mr. Smith is that he calls Mr. Langley via a normal wire-driven phone. Mr. Langley has both a working cell phone and a wire-driven phone. So Mr. Anderson calls Mr. Langley via cell phone who then simple puts the cell phone against the handset of the regular phone on which Mr. Smith is listening.

Most tools which communicate with other tools over routers / firewalls rely on external servers for "handshake". The communication after successful handshake though might take place without routing all traffic across the external server.

But how? I've investigated this subject before without any luck.

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I am a philosopher, of sorts, not a troll or an imbecile.
My apologies that this is not always obvious, despite my best efforts.

Darksoul71

Member

Registered: 2010-04-12

Posts: 319

Re: [no longer relevant] Selfhosted Dropbox alternative

But how? I've investigated this subject before without any luck.

Is this question serious ? If yes, then check out this topic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_forwarding

Since you do not have the control over the router / firewall you are behind, it is not possible to expose any internal port for incoming communication of any kind. Since outgoing communication will most likely not be regulated by your firewall (unless you are inside a company or University), you almost always will be able to reach external servers. Hence pagekite is working.

So in order to expose your local services / storage to the external world, you use an external server for routing purposes (hopefully no network guys will kill me for this explanations).

Most remote desktop tools (e.g. Teamviewer, GoTo Meeting, Netviewer) rely on an external server to establish communication between two parties often sitting behind firewalls not knowing each others IPs.

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My archlinux x86_64 host:
AMD E350 (2x1.6GHz) / 8GB DDR3 RAM / GeForce 9500GT (passive) / Arch running from 16GB USB Stick

zacariaz

Member

From: Denmark

Registered: 2012-01-18

Posts: 539

Re: [no longer relevant] Selfhosted Dropbox alternative

But how? I've investigated this subject before without any luck.

Is this question serious ? If yes, then check out this topic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_forwarding

Since you do not have the control over the router / firewall you are behind, it is not possible to expose any internal port for incoming communication of any kind. Since outgoing communication will most likely not be regulated by your firewall (unless you are inside a company or University), you almost always will be able to reach external servers. Hence pagekite is working.

So in order to expose your local services / storage to the external world, you use an external server for routing purposes (hopefully no network guys will kill me for this explanations).

Most remote desktop tools (e.g. Teamviewer, GoTo Meeting, Netviewer) rely on an external server to establish communication between two parties often sitting behind firewalls not knowing each others IPs.

We are obviously not speaking the same language here, but no matter, I would also be somewhat surprices if what I had in mind was possible.

Last edited by zacariaz (2012-09-17 16:22:31)

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I am a philosopher, of sorts, not a troll or an imbecile.
My apologies that this is not always obvious, despite my best efforts.