How do the big companies avoid messing with ports?

[webguyz]

When I got my Vonage or Sunrocket account I did not have to mess around with port forwarding on my NAT firewall. I plugged in the gizmo and I was off. How do companies like vonage and sunrocket configure their systems to not have to mess around with port forwarding? Do they hard code something at their service center end??

Just curious as the majority of the issues with the PBX seem to be firewall related.

Thanks!

 

[Ralph]

Hi

Nat Transversal and Stun Servers?

 

[webguyz]

I got a SPA3102 at my home office to replace my sunrocket service and installed the 3cx pbx as the datacenter behind its own firewall.

I have been trying 2 days now and port forwarded every port (both UDP & TCP) ever mentioned in these forums to no avail (on the server side as well). I can not get an internal call or a call transfer to this SPA3102. In the same location as the sunrocket gizmo was using the same firewall. I have a stun server defined and I can make outgoing calls to internal extensions and outside, but not the other way.

Pulling my hair out at a prodigous rate. Didn't know how good I had it with vonage and then sunrocket when it came to equipment setup at the customer end.

I set up a test pbx at the location network where the SPA3102 is and was able to iniated and pick up calls successfully between a soft phone and the SPA3102 so I know its a firewall issue, just can't pinpoint where.

 

[Anonymous]

Like ralph mentioned it is most likely not your firewall, but more a NAT issue.

The thing with firewalls is that if you initiate the call from behind the firewall you be ok for the respons as the firewall sees that as initiated from the inside.

So how does this hangs together?

spa---> www ---> firewall ---> 3cx

Where SPA has IP range A
Where WWW has IP range B
Where Firewall has IP range C
Where 3cx has IP range D

What is your config? also make sure you have routable addresses to the outside world :-0.

 

[webguyz]

Was going to replace my firewall anyway so will do that and if problems persist will be back. I currently am not using the NAT of the spa3102 but rather a linksys box I've had for a while.

spa3102 > NAT FW > www > FW > 3cx pbx

Thanks!

 

[dyntech]

They avoid these problems because they ship you hardware pre-configured to work with their systems.

 

[webguyz]

They avoid these problems because they ship you hardware pre-configured to work with their systems.

I guess the question then is how can can we end users do something like that with 3CX so that we don't have to dink around with port forwarding. How can we preconfigure a certain phone or ata to do that, or are we doomed to have to fight with every external extension that is behind a NAT firewall. If I recommend this to business customers and they have external extensions I don't want to have to spend tons of time troubleshooting each external installation that is behind a firewall.

 

[N_G]

External extensions - solution coming up!

stay tuned for a solution to the external extensions. Basically we are working on a solution that will tunnel everything over a single port. it will be in version 4, which is about 2 months away....

 

[webguyz]

Tele-Commuting, where employees work out of their homes, makes something like this critical.

Thanks for listening and the introduction of an excellent product.

 

[Cloverlick]

Was going to replace my firewall anyway so will do that and if problems persist will be back. I currently am not using the NAT of the spa3102 but rather a linksys box I've had for a while.

spa3102 > NAT FW > www > FW > 3cx pbx

Thanks!

Where is your STUN?
Are you referencing the same STUN on the 3102 and the 3CX?
Are you referencing the STUN in the soft phone?

Just to clarify.... does everything work if you take-down/bypass the FW completely?

GC