RE: Callback Profile

My reading of the Microsoft note is that this only applies to Microsoft
network services, not to arbitrary TCP connections. i.e. a single XP Home
machine can support 5 other remote machines where each remote machine can
perform any number of remote disk mounts, printer shares etc.

Have you tried just opening lots of BEEP connections to a peer running on an
XP machine?

To address one issue more directly: Opening a separate connection for
callbacks won't work if you're going through a NATing router (like the
little Linksys router I'm using at home at the moment).

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of Eamon O'Tuathail
> Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2002 12:08 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [BEEPwg] Callback Profile
>
>
>
> Is there a need for a callback profile, where an initiator peer asks the
> listener peer to initiate a new session between the same two peers.
> (i.e. peer A wishes peer B to initiate a session to peer A, but peer A
> needs to tell peer B to do this - hence the callback profile).
>
> The motivation would be firstly to enhance security in certain
> environments (a highly secure peer may only permit incoming connections
> to request a callback, but expose no other functionality [apart from the
> tuning profiles] to them), and secondly to work in environments when
> there are business/technical restrictions on the number and direction of
> open connections.
>
> A peer running on Windows XP Home can only maintain five simultaneous
> incoming connections, and a peer running on Windows XP Professional can
> only have 10 simultaneous incoming connections.
> [see http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314882]
> There are no restrictions on Windows 2000 Server or Windows .NET Server
> on the number of incoming connections. For all the versions of Windows
> mentioned, there are no restrictions on the number of outgoing
> connections.
>
> One expensive option is to set up a traditional Windows client-server
> network, which usually involves Windows Domains. This requires you to
> buy
> Windows XP Professional for machines that only act as client (XP Home
> will not suffice for Windows Domains), buy the Windows Server product
> for machines that might have more than 10 incoming connections, and buy
> a "Client Access License" for each client to permit it to access a
> server. (you Linux guys can stop laughing now).
>
> A much better option is to just put Windows XP Home on all the machines,
> and using the callback profile arrange them as required - maybe point to
> point, or maybe hub-and-spoke [if one peer exposes a service that many
> other wish to use].
>
> How would a callback profile work?
> ==================================
> 1) A peer [we call it the provider peer] that provides a popular service
> or a high-security service based on BEEP would list the Callback Profile
> in its Greeting message. Depending on local configuration this could be
> the initial greeting message, or the one after the tuning reset
> following TLS setup; also authentication may be required.
>
> 2) A peer wishing to use the remote service [the user peer] would
> establish a connection to the provider peer, configure security as
> appropriate, and upon detecting the Callback Profile in the Greeting
> message, would create a channel based on this profile.
>
> 3) The user peer sends a single message on the callback channel to the
> provider peer identifying the transport mapping details to use for the
> callback - e.g. transport mapping type [RFC 3081, SCTP, multiple TCP
> connections] and addressing [for RFC 3081, IP address and port to use].
>
> 4) The existing session is shut down.
>
> 5) The provider peer initiates a session with the user peer based on the
> addressing information provided. After that, it works just as normal.
>
> My questions:
> =============
>
> Anyone see any problems with this approach?
>
> Anyone got a better solution?
>
> Anyone got a good reference to security issues that have been uncovered
> with other types of callback usage - e.g. ftp.
>
> An alternative to the callback profile in BEEP would be a simple UDP
> message, but I would have security concerns about that.
>
> Eamon
>
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