Thursday, April 28, 2016

What is STUN and why do I need a STUN Server?

Skype is quite well known. You can call up someone using your web browser to speak to him if he is also on the Internet or even his cell phone if he has a Skype UserId / Password or Skype account. This is made possible by VOIP (voice over Internet) using the VoIP protocol.

Now what is STUN?

STUN is Session Traversal of User Datagram Protocol (UDP) through Network Address Translators(NAT).

If you are using the IP Phone from behind the firewall (where NAT becomes important) then STUN allows you setup Phone calls to aVoIP Provider hosted outside your local network (typical example is a home network consisting of computers connected to a router).

While your voice calls go through the router to the STUN Server, the STUN server can connect to your local machine behind the firewall.

STUNServer_00
Read more here. The above image was from this link.

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