Do we need to implement UP&P support? It would help in many areas:
- It would allow us to forward ports and detect our real IP address!
- It would make connection work more reliably on dynamic IPs, especially
with nodes with poor uptime.
- It would expand the range of nodes which can be seednodes on opennet.
(To be a seednode you need to be directly connected or port
forwarded).
- It would allow us to implement something like the distribution
servlet.
- It would allow us to usefully implement support for "invitations", one
use darknet references which come with authorization to add the other
side.
Unfortunately:
- It is grossly insecure if run on a LAN with untrusted users. We would
have to ask the user during setup.
- It is blocked by default on Windows XP SP2.
- Stats on another p2p app which supported UP&P showed it only working
successfully about 50% of the time even when detected... That may have
been bugs in their implementation of course...
So is it a panacea or a nightmare? Do we want UP&P support?
--
Matthew J Toseland - toad@???
Freenet Project Official Codemonkey - http://freenetproject.org/
ICTHUS - Nothing is impossible. Our Boss says so.
