State of Peer-to-Peer Communication across Network Address Translators

Abstract

This memo documents the various methods known to be in use by applications to establish direct communication in the presence of Network Address Translators (NATs) at the current time. Although this memo is intended to be mainly descriptive, the Security Considerations section makes some purely advisory recommendations about how to deal with security vulnerabilities the applications could inadvertently create when using the methods described. This memo covers NAT traversal approaches used by both TCP- and UDP-based applications. This memo is not an endorsement of the methods described, but merely an attempt to capture them in a document. This memo provides information for the Internet community.

Abstract as published in the RFC, via rfc-editor.org.

What “Informational” means

Published for the general information of the community. It does not define an IETF standard and carries no standards-track status.