[AG-TECH] Bridge server

[Todd Zimmerman]

Thomas D. Uram wrote:
>> Given the importance/need for many of us to statically assign bridge
> ports, will this functionality
>> be available in AG3?
> 
> Can you elaborate this point more?  
Heh... good question.   I kinda just threw that comment out there just to get an idea of what
Argonne sees as the future of bridging and static ports.  Currently we at WestGrid (and it appears
many users/venueserver operators) are finding ways to statically assign ports for specific bridged
venues to allow users to request extremely narrow port openings from their network administrators.
In our experience, network admins are still reluctant to open even a multi-hundred block of ports to
the entire network.

I guess my question would be, is there any way for a bridge admin to specify a port range for a
specific venue within the AG3 infrastructure?  Right now I'm running an AG3 bridge and it apparently
doesn't require a config file - can I still specify a config file with venue/port specifications etc?


Thanks,

Todd



> What is currently in AG3 is this:
> - A Bridge can be run with a particular port range specified.  The
> person running the
> bridge will have to ensure that these ports are open for udp through
> their firewall.
> 
> - A user will see which bridges are available, and can view the hostname
> and port
> range used by each.  The user can then decide which bridges to use, and
> pass this information to a network
> admin to open ports accordingly.
> 
> Questions this leaves open:
> 
> - What should the default port range for a bridge be?  How about
> 50000-50200?  This
> would ensure that bridges will, by default, all use the same
> (relatively) narrow port range.
> 
> - Is this sufficient for your local networking needs?  There may be
> something additional
> implied by 'statically assign bridge ports', and I'd like it to be
> explicit so I can address it.
> 
> Tom
> 
> 
> 
> On 4/19/06 11:44 AM, Todd Zimmerman wrote:
>> Agreed.  We've been bridging our entire venueserver for years.  We
>> only run into issues when we
>> overlap venueserver and venue configs.
>>
>> Given the importance/need for many of us to statically assign bridge
>> ports, will this functionality
>> be available in AG3?
>>
>> Todd
>>
>> Thomas D. Uram wrote:
>>> Bridging an entire venue server is supported just fine in my experience.
>>> There may be problems if the config specifies an overlapping set by,
>>> say, specifying a venue server and individual venues on that server;
>>> these should be regarded as mutually exclusive options and, I think,
>>> in most practical situations, they are.
>>>
>>> Tom
>>>
>>>
>>> On 4/19/06 9:33 AM, Michael Braitmaier wrote:
>>>> Jeremy Mann schrieb:
>>>>
>>>>> So basically I have to manually bridge each room. In my config file I
>>>>> tried to set the entire VenueServer to only use a range of ports,
>>>>> then I
>>>>> entered ports for the rooms I wanted to configure statically. But I
>>>>> still
>>>>> came across that "Address already in use" problem.
>>>>>
>>>>> For example, I have the VenueServer set to 5000-5200 and 4 Venues to
>>>>> 5202
>>>>> on up.
>>>>>  
>>>>>
>>>> I don't specifiy the ports for the venue server overall. Beside I
>>>> think bridging a whole venue server is not that well supported.
>>>> You have to specify the ports for each venue seperately. If you refer
>>>> to the ports of the VenueServer itself, these are configured through
>>>> the VenueServer
>>>> configuration. As fas I know through the VenueServer.cfg file, but I
>>>> didn't succeed in configuring it yet.
>>>>
>>>> Michael
>>>>
>>>>> Michael Braitmaier said:
>>>>>  
>>>>>
>>>>>> I am doing basically the same. I restrict the range of the ports for
>>>>>> unicast for a specific venue.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Config-File example:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> [https://rusagvideo.rus.uni-stuttgart.de:8000/Venues/000001026deebc1400c0006c00230006555]
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> type=Venue
>>>>>> portMin=50096
>>>>>> portMax=50099
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One of the problems rising with this configuration method is that
>>>>>> normally AG selects ports on a random
>>>>>> pattern put of the range you specified in the config file.
>>>>>> Ports for rat and vic are allocated sequentially.
>>>>>> So first rat gets assigned 50096 for example.
>>>>>> When the port for vic should  be determined, it can happen due to the
>>>>>> nature of the random allocation
>>>>>> that for vic also 50096 is initially selected. This of course leads
>>>>>> to a
>>>>>> "Address already in use" error.
>>>>>> I avoided the problem by patching the AccessGrid files responsible
>>>>>> for
>>>>>> port allocation to keep a list
>>>>>> of ports which are in use and have the allocation algorithm first
>>>>>> check
>>>>>> if a port the algorithm wants to allocate
>>>>>> isn't in use yet.
>>>>>> Otherwise you have to restart the bridge server until you don't
>>>>>> get the
>>>>>> "address already in use" error to be sure you really have
>>>>>> video and audio correctly bridged.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Michael
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Jeremy Mann schrieb:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  
>>>>>>> Thomas D. Uram said:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>   
>>>>>>>> Which version of AG software are you using for BridgeServer and
>>>>>>>> VenueServer?
>>>>>>>> Can you post your full bridge cfg file?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>       
>>>>>>> AG 2.4. Attached is the config file. Worth noted is that I no
>>>>>>> longer get
>>>>>>> those python errors, however, now when I start it, several of the
>>>>>>> venues
>>>>>>> aren't bridged because the bridgeserver says the address is
>>>>>>> already in
>>>>>>> use
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>     
>>>>>> -- 
>>>>>> ------------------
>>>>>> Dipl.-Inf. Michael Braitmaier
>>>>>> HLRS - Visualization / Video Conferencing
>>>>>> University of Stuttgart
>>>>>> Germany
>>>>>> Phone: ++49 711 685 5996
>>>>>> Fax  : ++49 711 682 357
>>>>>> Website: http://www.hlrs.de/people/braitmaier/
>>>>>>
>>>>>>   
>>>>>
>>>>>  
>>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>
>