Re: [circle] documentation for running behind NAT?

[darkblood]

Please bear in mind, my info is about a year old... I haven't been active
on the circle in a while.

On Sun, 12 Dec 2004, Matthew Wilson wrote:

> When I try to run circle from my laptop behind my router, I get an error
> that I need to run it in proxy mode, and then it says to read the
> documentation.

Proxy mode runs a bit of python code on the router that passes messages
back and forth between your internal lan and the internet.  You need a
Unix machine for a router, with ssh access for this to work.  

> Where are the docs for how to set this up.  More generally, any
> background is appreciated.  I can configure my router to do port
> forwarding; is that all that is required?

Unfortunately, because of the way that the circle handles ports,
simple port-forwarding won't work (it needs to change what ports it is on
constantly)  NAT and IP masquerade don't seem to work either.  I've been
able to make it go by setting DMZ to point at the machine running circle,
or at the machine that is set as the circle proxy though.

Basically you don't need to do anything special to the proxy machine.  If
it has ssh and python installed, the first client machine that has it
designated as a proxy will connect to it via ssh, upload the magic proxy
code, and start the magic proxy daemon in user space.  Then any clients
will be able to use this proxy to make their connection work.  If you
don't have a suitable machine inside your lan, you can use another machine
where you happen to have fast access...  Someone could set you up an
account on say a webserver that is close to your lan (ie fast ping
times) and you use it as a proxy... all the circle traffic for your lan
gets piped via ssh to that machine, and then that machine runs the code to
make it go to the circle.

Hope that helps, and that it isn't too out of date or inaccurate... I'm
sure that someone who is a little more up-to-date can correct my more
glaring mis-recollections.

-- Pierre