> Oh, and the other thing where someone commented that on the > majority of NATd > setups the NAT router would actually spot the destination IP > address as its > own and route the request locally instead of via the internet ... > well, that > wouldn't matter at all, surely?
That assertion was incorrect. See below. > If aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd is the IP of the NAT > router then whether the request goes via the internet and back, or whether > the NAT box realises it points to itself, doesn't matter at all - the IP > address is still the correct IP address, the scheme still works > as described > and intended. No, it won't work at all either way, because of how most NAT routers work: Typical NAT routers don't handle self-referencing IPs well. In other words, if my NAT router's WAN address is 123.45.67.89 and a LAN machine (say, 10.10.10.1) tries to talk to 123.45.67.89:4321, it will fail. I'm using a SonicWall SOHO firewall/router, and this is the case with it. I believe Linksys and the other really common ones behave similarly. It's annoying, but true. The bottom line is: A local machine with NAT cannot reliably figure out what routable IP it has without outside help. Luckily, we have a network of outside help, and seed nodes are required for anything to work, so we just need our protocol to handle some form of, "What IP do I look like?" "You look like IP such-and-such." -glenn _______________________________________________ devl mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hawk.freenetproject.org:8080/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl
