[Opensim-dev] A software to connect its own region and TP in from locally...

[Olish Newman]

Hello, Imphazar !

Bad news for OpenRegions... the problem I have with local regions is 
that someone hosting its own regions on the same computer he/she runs 
the viewer or even in the same LAN can't access his/her regions but 
others from the internet can. Stefan Andersson from Tribal Media 
explains below that's due to router capable or not to loopback inseide 
the LAN... Finally, we'll not be able actually to propose home hosting 
to people... :s

We have to think about alternatives for now, community regions, etc... 
Any ideas welcome.

Friendly yours,

Olish.


Olish,
 
we are doing something similar to what you are describing with
 
http://tribalnet.se/
 
- there you can download an windows application that gives you the 
ability to build locally, and either publish your local pc region or 
upload your build on our servers.
 
The issue you're seeing is known as the 'NAT bounce' or 'NAT 
loopback' issue - your router only translates and/or forwards traffic 
crossing the LAN-WAN border, which means that if you access your 
computer with the _external_ IP from _within_ the LAN, the traffic isn't 
'bounced' back into the LAN, but is lost.
 
Normally, you would solve this by simply address the computer with your 
_internal_ IP from the inside (typically, you have host file settings or 
an internal dns that serves internal ip's within the LAN)
 
now, things are getting complicated with the Second Life viewer, as the 
viewer demands regions be addressed with _IP_, not host name, so the 
viewer never resolves anything, so host magic won't work.
 
so, on login and teleports, when the grid tells the viewer where to 
start, it would have to serve you your _internal_ IP - but your 
_external_ ip to the rest of the world.
 
Which gets complex.

The solution is either to configuring routing/translation manually 
(which is complex for an end-user) or to get a router that supports it 
out of the box.
 
 >From our experience, this is actually a common problem with home routers.

Best regards,
Stefan Andersson
Tribal Media AB
 
Join the 3d web revolution : http://tribalnet.se/
 



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 > Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:16:06 +0200
 > From: olish at newworldgrid.com
 > To: opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
 > Subject: [Opensim-dev] A software to connect its own region and TP in 
from locally...
 >
 > Hello !
 >
 > I started to develop a software that creates a region automatically for
 > a given grid. Clicking on "Create" creates automatically the region file
 > as the software gets automatically the local IP + public IP + domain
 > name and you just have to fill the region name and its grid coordinates,
 > then when all regions are created and configured, the user clicks "Start
 > Simulator" and the sim starts up after the software configured its
 > firewall and forwarded its router ports correctly. So people can host
 > their region for free and at home.
 >
 > The aim of this software is offer people the ability to attach their own
 > regions on the grid they choose with the minimum manipulations possible,
 > and without the need to rent a server or have another computer on the
 > LAN. But there's a but...
 >
 > I experimented this last week to TP into my locally hosted regions
 > (viewer and opensim on the same computer) on OSGrid and my own grid :
 > anybody outside the LAN can TP in, but anybody inside the LAN can't
 > sadly, while I heard that some people could. I followed all instructions
 > on the OSWiki here : http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Network_Settings . I
 > run under Windows Vista, and there's no equivalent to iptables to route
 > the traffic...
 >
 > It would be really great I think if people could host their regions on
 > their own computer without such issues.
 >
 > Is this issue an OpenSim related issue or may I use another software in
 > order to route correctly the packets to the region from the local viewer
 > ? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I would be happy to offer such
 > a tool to the OpenSim community.
 >
 > Looking forward your reactions.
 >
 > Kind regards,
 >
 > Olish Newman.
 >
 > _______________________________________________
 > Opensim-dev mailing list
 > Opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
 > https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev

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