TCP/UDP hole punching from and to the same NAT network

Posted by Luc on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Luc
Published on 2012-09-27T19:41:09Z Indexed on 2012/09/27 21:40 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 211

Filed under:
|
|
|
|

I was wondering if tcp/udp hole punching would still work when you are in the same network (behind a NAT), and what the packet's path would be.

What happens when using hole punching on the same network, is that it will send a packet out with the same destination and source address. Only the source and destination port would differ. I imagine a router with NAT loopback enabled will handle this as it should, but how about other routers? Would they drop the packet, or would a router (the first?) from the ISP bounce the packet back after which it gets handled okay?

I'm wondering because I was thinking about using this technique to circumvent a block between peers in a network (like a school network where clients can only access the internet, but any contact with each other is blocked). The only other option is to use a man in the middle as proxy (tunnel?). The disadvantage of this is that you have to have a server with significantly more bandwidth than one that would only do hole punching. Also the latency would increase significantly.

© Super User or respective owner

Related posts about networking

Related posts about nat