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Net Meeting

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by 28

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(I only have five points to give sorry)

So here's the deal, My office wants to use Net Meeting to call a bunch of other offices and several such offices use NAT. My office wants to use Net Meeting to call out but not receive incoming calls. My office is behind a firewall. We neither want to open up ports nor use a directory server to have such offices call us.

1) Any way to make Net Meeting calls to offices with NAT?

If not, I believe we'll have to decide whether or not to open the ports or use a directory server. I have reservations for each. Opening the ports seems like a security risk. Being on a directory server seems too public.

So what would you do?

(At the time, we are considering a VPN. If this would be part of a solution, just consider we have one)

3 replies

by mckaytech

Yes, it is possible to make NetMeeting work with NAT but I think you have a misconception about opening ports. Even with NAT, you'll still have to "open" ports to get NetMeeting to work. In a NAT environment, you do so by forwarding them from the outside interface to the same or different port on the inside interface.

If you have a VPN tunnel up and running between the offices that will be participating in NetMeeting sessions, then this all becomes irrelevant because you can run all ports and addresses securely through the tunnel and be done with it.

It's good you're asking the questions, because all forms of network access require tradeoffs between security and useability. The most secure network is the one connected to no one and conversely the least secure is the one connected to everyone with no barriers or controls. I think a secure VPN most fairly balances both aspects.

paul

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