[Blink] SOCKS support for Blink?

[Adrian Georgescu]

Mike,

In practice, SIP signaling works over UDP, TCP or TLS and this depends on the choice of the destination and not of the initiating client. RTP media works practically over UDP (and TCP at least theoretical yet TCP is not really suitable for real time media like speech). SIP is a not a generic TCP/IP application, it is a very particular one with specific needs when it comes to NAT traversal.

This Socks thing has to do with NAT traversal for applications that use raw TCP. SIP has its own specifically designed NAT traversal mechanisms for both signaling and media planes and any intermediate hop like a proxy must be SIP protocol aware and not some dump proxy that does raw TCP connections. The applications you mentioned use simple TCP sockets (HTTP requests and responses) whereas setting up a SIP session involves many different ports for both sending and receiving data over different protocols and the combination of protocols differ depending on the preference of the destination. 

The mechanism of plugging Socks into SIP or vice-versa seems to me completely misplaced. These concepts are simply not compatible one with each other.

I am not aware of any SIP implementation or specification using Socks for SIP signaling.  Have you seen any of these or is just some wild idea?

Adrian

On Oct 2, 2010, at 12:04 AM, Mike O'Connor wrote:

> :You are completely and utterly confused about what a SIP client is or does. Or maybe is me. Not sure ...
> 
> Let me rephrase this as best as I can, because there's an
> understanding gap somewhere.
> 
> Blink is a SIP client. 
> 
> Like most SIP clients, Blink uses TCP/IP to initiate connections 
> and exchange data with SIP servers.
> 
> SOCKS is a particular proxying mechanism for TCP/IP applications
> specified in RFC1928.  There are many flavors of SOCKS servers to
> do the proxying, and there's a lot of applications that have SOCKS 
> support so they can work with SOCKS servers.  Check out:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOCKS_%28protocol%29
> 
> In fact, in MacOS, you can specify a SOCKS server and a lot of 
> MacOS apps (iTunes, Safari, Java, etc.) will obey it:
> 
> 	System Preferences->Network->{adapter of choice)
> 	Click on Advanced
> 	Click on Proxies
> 	Look for SOCKS 
> 
> I'd like Blink to be able to optionally use the SOCKS protocol, talk
> to a SOCKS server, and through that SOCKS server talk to the rest of
> the Internet.
> 
> Currently, Blink does not do this.
> 
> I think what is needed is for Blink to be linked with some sort
> of SOCKS library.  
> 
> Does this help?
> 
> :On Oct 1, 2010, at 9:48 PM, Mike O'Connor wrote:
> :
> :> :Hi Michael,
> :> :
> :> :Is not clear what SIP protocol has to do with Sock servers.  Can you please explain what is the link between the two? Not just explain but point to some standard or specification about the link between the two.
> :> 
> :> This request is about Blink's behavior as a TCP/IP application.  
> :> 
> :> Blink doesn't support RFC1928/SOCKS, either within the Blink
> :> application itself, or in the overall MacOS proxy settings where 
> :> one can specify SOCKS as an option.  I'd like it if Blink either:
> :> 
> :> a) had the appropriate application support so it could point at
> :>   a SOCKS server from the Preferences window
> :> 
> :>   -or-
> :> 
> :> b) was linked with the appropriate libraries such that it obeyed
> :>   the SOCKS proxy setting within MacOS  
> :> 
> :> The only relationship between my desire for SOCKS support and SIP
> :> servers is that, in my particular case, the fastest path to my SIP
> :> server tendas to be via a SOCKS server.  
> :> 
> :> Make sense?
> 
> --
> Michael J. O'Connor                                          mjo at dojo.mi.org
> =--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--=
> "Not baked goods, professor...  baked BADS!"                        -The Tick
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