[AG-TECH] AG 2.0 and static multicast addresses

[Michael Daw]

Ivan,

Just reassure me - once a venue has a multicast address/port, that
address/port is forever tied to that venue, right (at least for the life of
the venue)? I mean, it couldn't work otherwise, could it? If that's the
case, I don't understand the difference between AG2.0 and now, with respect
to firewalls, etc. If you want to have a meeting in Fuller Sail Room (the
new AG2.0 version of Full Sail Room), you will know its address and port and
your firewall can be configured to cope with that.

I realise there are problems if venues are used in substantially different
ways to now - e.g. a venue created just for a single meeting or even a
single brief purpose (e.g. a 10 minute visualization?), then destroyed. Is
that what you're envisaging?

Or am I missing something? (E.g. a brain)

Yours,
Confused of Manchester

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov [mailto:owner-ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov]On
> Behalf Of Ivan R. Judson
> Sent: 04 February 2003 22:18
> To: 'Jennifer Teig von Hoffman'; ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov
> Subject: RE: [AG-TECH] AG 2.0 and static multicast addresses
>
>
>
> Hi Jennifer, and everybody else :-),
>
> We have been thinking about these issues, more lately than ever before. As
> anyone who was in the town hall realized today, ANL is now a
> corporate-like
> institution wrt firewalls. We have one, and we don't accept incoming
> connections unless we put conduits in place.
>
> However, we do have a plan in our minds -- we're working on getting it on
> paper (well digital paper) -- to share with the community soon; probably
> before the retreat.
>
> I'm glad you brought this up, since it's probably a concern that affects
> more and more users.
>
> --Ivan
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov
> > [mailto:owner-ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov] On Behalf Of Jennifer Teig
> > von Hoffman
> > Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2003 3:52 PM
> > To: ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov
> > Subject: [AG-TECH] AG 2.0 and static multicast addresses
> >
> >
> > Hi everybody, and especially Ivan :-) ,
> >
> > Having had a bit of time to reflect on today's town hall, I'm quite
> > worried about the fact that AG 2.0 will shift us to a system of
> > exclusively dynamically-generated multicast addresses for
> > venues (even
> > allowing for some transition time and special transition venues).
> >
> > At first this worried me purely in the context of the implications of
> > nodes running 1.x not being able to co-exist in virtual venues with
> > nodes running 2.x; if this incompatibility exists, it's going to be a
> > nightmare for those of us planning even very small events,
> > even if the
> > transitional rooms Ivan spoke of today were available. If you
> > were, say,
> > planning a meeting among 5 sites, you'd need to either be sure that
> > everybody was running the same version of the software, or be sure to
> > reserve the "transitional" venue where everybody could co-exist. My
> > hunch is that most events would take place in these
> > transitional rooms,
> > since most of us wouldn't be able to find the time to ask
> > everybody what
> > version of AGTk they were running.
> >
> > But then, after some time worrying about that, I started
> > worrying about
> > ports and firewalls and such. I'm already aware of a couple AG nodes
> > where they have to ask their firewall admins to unblock specific
> > ports/addresses in order to participate in a given meeting;
> > surely that
> > sort of firewall reconfiguration won't happen on the fly
> > along with the
> > dynamic address allocation. So people at those nodes wouldn't
> > be able to
> > upgrade to 2.0 unless they could convince their network
> > security staff
> > to make some substantial changes.
> >
> > And I'm guessing that if I (a relatively non-technical user)
> > am coming
> > up with these concerns, there are probably more big issues
> > here too --
> > it's a major change in the underpinnings of the AG.
> >
> > - Jennifer
> >
> >
>
>