[KLUG Driftwood] Task List

[Todd Pillars]

from the gnugk website:

1. What is a H.323 gatekeeper ?
A H.323 gatekeeper controls all H.323 clients (endpoints like MS
Netmeeting) in his zone. Its most important function is address
translation between symbolic alias addresses and IP addresses. This way
you can call "jan" instead of knowing which IP address she currently works
on.

1.2. Can I use the GNU Gatekeeper for NAT/masquerading H323 calls through
a firewall ?
Use the proxy function that has been introduced in version 2.0. (we will
be using 2.0.4)

2. Why should I use a gatekeeper ?
If you currently use a client and are happy with the way it works there
may be no reason to use a gatekeeper. If you however work in a larger VoIP
setup using symbolic addresses is definitely a great plus. More
importantly the gatekeeper is the key to the management of a VoIP network.
VoIP gateways for example register at the gatekeeper and the gatekeeper
finds the right one for you to use to call a specific number.

A gatekeeper can also manage the bandwidth used by the clients. Currently
we grant all bandwidth requests until a predefined limit is reached. In
the future we could implement a more detailed schema.


There is an in-depth look at gatekeepers at
http://www.webproforum.com/h323/topic06.html


>> 1. Get gnugk (the gatekeeper) running?
>
> I'm still fuzzy about what exactly a gatekeeper does, and if we need one
> with our direct connection to the internet.  However, I ask the question
> on the Devil Linux developer's mailing list about if there is currently
> any gatekeeper support in Devil Linux.
>
> As I suspected the answer was "no", BUT I learned that the
> "extra/h323-conntrack-nat" patch is enabled in the latest Devil Linux:
>
> http://www.netfilter.org/documentation/pomlist/pom-extra.html#h323-conntrack-nat
>
> Does that do us any good?  Is it something that could be used instead of
> gnugk?  (I don't understand the differences exactly)
>
> Or would you like me to attempt adding gnugk to the Devil Linux distro?

I would love to see a firewall that supported H.323 (and sip) natively!
IMHO it would give an extra boost to those thinking of using a Linux
Firewall and possibly implementing VoIP


Todd