[mosh-devel] Using mosh-server behind a NAT router

[Bert Bos]

I wanted to mosh into a server behind a NAT router. No doubt I could add 
port redirects, but I thought that should not be needed: mosh-server can 
create its own redirection via UPnP (assuming the router supports that).

I did some experiments and indeed it works. However, my code is in the 
form of a wrapper around mosh-server, written in Bash. So more of a 
prototype than a patch.

I think it would be nice if mosh offered an option --nat or something 
similar, which directs mosh-server to try and open a port via UPnP. But 
I'm not offering to write the code.

My wrapper (attached) works as follows:

If mosh was called with an option -p, then use that port, otherwise try 
a number of ports until one is found that isn't yet in use.

To check if a port is in use, test two things: see if there is already a 
server on this machine listening on that port, and see if there is 
already a port redirect for that port on the router.

Once the port has been chosen, ask the router via UPnP to redirect that 
port to this machine, then start mosh-server. When mosh-server ends, 
send another UPnP command to delete the port redirection again. (That 
part is a bit ugly in my wrapper code, but it would be easy to add in 
mosh-server itself, just after it prints "mosh-server is exiting.")



Bert
-- 
  Bert Bos                                ( W 3 C ) http://www.w3.org/
  http://www.w3.org/people/bos                               W3C/ERCIM
  bert at w3.org                             2004 Rt des Lucioles / BP 93
  +33 (0)4 92 38 76 92            06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: mosh-server-upnp
Type: application/x-shellscript
Size: 1631 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/mosh-devel/attachments/20120920/f3266b23/attachment.bin