I have a router that normally blocks all ports. I couldn't get the program go go into internet mode, but it worked fine in lan mode. I turned off the firewall, and specifically opened port 4569, but to no avail. Please help!!

Hi Tom,

Internet mode is only available if your GeckoPhone can see a RAS connection.

So basically only computers connected directly to the internet, with a dialup modem etc will be able to initialise in internet mode, and only these phones will be able to receive a call made to their geckophone number.

GeckoPhones that can't see a RAS connection, phones within a LAN etc, will not be able to initialise in internet mode, only in LAN mode.

I notice that you've subscribed your GeckoPhone , are you able to use VIP services from behind the router (can you use contact book etc)? If you can use your VIP services then GeckoPhone is getting through the router no problem. And you should be able to make and place IP address calls through your router within your LAN. You should also be able to place a GeckoPhone number call to a machine outside your LAN that has a RAS connection, a home dialup machine for example.

Unlike Skype and other P2P phone systems, a GeckoPhone conversation only ever uses a direct socket connection between machines, there is no routing information etc, this simplicity of design makes the architecture as strong as the underlying TCPIP transport (ie you don't rely on 3rd party GeckoPhone instances to complete the call).

Hope this info helps.

Tom,

I may have misunderstood your problem, to clarify things (for me) could you post your phones internet status as shown in point 3 on this page.

thx.

The status shows 11

11 Can see server: YES Forced LAN mode: YES
according to your site.

i have tried dmz as well, but it wont get past the looking for a ras connection

is there a way to bypass this and run the connection through my network card to the router?? sorry to be a pain, but the program seems otherwise great

Is your problem that you can't receive GeckoPhone number calls made within the LAN? :

If your geckophone's sitting within a LAN then I don't think there's any way of it receiving a call made to its geckophone number. It can however receive calls made to it's LAN ip address from other phones within the LAN.

The reason that you can't receive a geckophone number call within a LAN is because:

The GeckoPhone system is not like Skype (a distributed p2p network). The GeckoPhone server simply binds a dynamic IP address (dialup, RAS etc) to a static GeckoPhone number. So when one GeckoPhone calls another the following happens:

==========
[1]
caller enters number XXX and hits dial.

[2]
callers phone sends number XXX to geckophone server.

[3]
GeckoPhone server replies with IP address of phone XXX.

[4]
callers phone initiates a direct socket connection with IP address.

[5]
the VOIP conversation is streamed over the direct socket connection.
==========

Every time you turn on a GeckoPhone it registers with the GeckoPhone server, but if you're within a LAN then the GeckoPhone server will see the IP address of the LAN computer that's sat on the internet, ie the gateway.

So if someone tries to call your GeckoPhone number, then their GeckoPhone will be trying to establish a call with your LANs gateway computer.

I would love to know how to get a call to pass through a gateway, but without deploying a custom daemon on the gateway computer I can't think how I can get it to work?

well my net connection has a static ip of 213.78.XX.XX, and can route connections to particular pc's based on port number. so i could set it up so that port 4569 routes to my pc 192.168.2.12 (where geckophone is running) i get vip features, and can make and recieve calls within my lan. hope that helps. if you need more specific info, then feel free to email me on tom_eaton_54321@hotmail.com.

btw, thanks for adding the answerphone, i think its a great new feature

thanks for the info tom. glad you like the answerphone.

I'm going to do some reading about routers...

One point to note is that for people like myself and tom using port forwarding is that the geckophone always creates outbound connections to a specific port number when dialing.

PortNo. 4569 - this is fixed.

This means you can only use a *single* port-forwading rule at the firewall/router/gateway/NAT (take your pick), so effectively only allowing a single machine within the lan to ring from outside. Of course as many computers as you want inside the lan can ring each other, and ring people outside the lan...

Its impossible to bring the client into "internet mode" unless your using a Dial up Modem. Broadband users have to accept LAN mode, although connections to the server (ringing, being rung) still work fine. You can tell this beacuse the server connection status icon has a tick, and the left hand side digit is a 1.

NB: VNC (remote desktop) gets around the problem by using logical "screen numbers" which correspond to ports 6800+screen# --- eg. VNC://192.168.0.1:3 for screen 3 directed at port 6803.

Regards,

Chris

The logical numbers idea is very interesting, I'm just wondering how to make sure that everyone within the same LAN gets a different port offset?

Broadband users should be able to initialise in internet mode no problem, provided that the end IP address that the GeckoPhone server sees when logon occurs is an adapter on the clients machine, then everything should be fine. My home machine has a USB ADSL broadband (512k) modem attached and GeckoPhone works just fine throug it. Are you seeing otherwise?

My broadband is delivered over the LAN ethernet.

On my univeristy connection, Geckophone sits on the "looking for dialup internet connection" until I manaually select LAN mode. To get round this I use the command line argument. My network adapter has its own internet-wide IP (not using NAT).

On ADSL connection at home its fine.

Chris