Patent Publication Number: US-7710978-B2

Title: System and method for traversing a firewall with multimedia communication

Description:
TECHNICAL FIELD 
   The present invention relates, in general, to electronic communications, and, more specifically, to transmitting communication data within a multimedia communication system. 
   BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
   The Internet may be used for many forms of communication, including voice conversations, video conferencing, development collaboration, and the like. In order for a manufacturers&#39; programs, applications, equipment, and systems to be interoperable with each other, many protocols have been developed to standardize the communication between such systems. These protocols have grown increasingly complex to handle all the types of traffic generated to facilitate communication for video conferencing, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and data over Internet Protocol applications. Two such protocols are H.323 from the International Telecommunication Union—Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) and the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Both H.323 and SIP typically allow for multimedia communication including voice, video, and data communications in real-time. 
   In Internet Protocol (IP) communication networks, devices or endpoints on the network are identified by their respective IP address. Applications and programs on the different devices further identify each other using port numbers. A port number is a sixteen bit integer, the value of which falls into one of three ranges: the well-known ports, ranging from 0 through 1023; the registered ports, ranging from 1024 through 49151; and the dynamic and/or private ports, ranging from 49152 through 65535. The well-known ports are reserved for assignment by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for use by applications that communicate using the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and generally can only be used by a system/root process or by a program run by a privileged user. The registered ports may be registered for use by companies or other individuals for use by applications that communicate using TCP or UDP. The dynamic or private ports, by definition, cannot be officially registered nor are they assigned. Both the H.323 and SIP standards use multiple, well-known, registered, and/or dynamic ports in order to facilitate such communication. 
   H.323 and SIP each rely on multiple other protocols, some of which may in turn rely on UDP for sending and receiving multimedia traffic. UDP features minimal overhead compared to other transport protocols (most notably TCP) at the expense of having less reliability. UDP does not provide for guaranteed packet delivery nor data integrity. UDP does offer the highest possible throughput, thus, making it ideally suited for multimedia real-time communications. 
   Multimedia communications traffic will most likely have to traverse a firewall at some point during transmission, especially over the Internet, regardless to which protocol the traffic conforms. Firewalls are used in modem networks to screen out unwanted or malicious traffic. One of many techniques a firewall may use is packet filtering, wherein the firewall determines whether or not to allow individual packets by analyzing information in the packet header (such as the IP address and port of the source and destination). Thus, various ports or IP addresses may be blocked to minimize the risk of allowing malicious traffic into an important computer network or system. Another more advanced technique is called stateful inspection, wherein in addition to analyzing header information, a firewall keeps track of the status of any connection opened by network devices behind the firewall. Deciding whether or not a packet is dropped in a stateful inspection is based on the tracked status of the connection and information from within the packet header. In practice, firewalls (especially those used by large corporations) generally only allow traffic from the well-known ports, though such firewalls may be specially configured to allow traffic on any port. For multimedia communication systems that use multiple registered and dynamic ports, firewalls (unless specially configured) will generally block the data traffic on these ports between multimedia systems, thus, preventing communication. 
   Video conferencing endpoints generally use multiple dynamic ports for the transmission of communication data packets and, as such, each port used necessitates opening that port on a firewall. Additionally, different endpoints participating in different conversations use different sets of ports, further increasing the number of ports to be opened on a firewall. Reconfiguring ports on a firewall is a time consuming task that introduces the risk of human error, which may defeat the purpose of the firewall by leaving a network vulnerable to malicious attacks. Furthermore, even though these dynamic ports should be closed after the communication ends, in practice, once a firewall port is open, it remains open because the firewall technicians typically do not expend the additional time resources to close the ports. 
   Additionally, many video conferencing systems do not support encryption. In such cases the communication between endpoints is not secure and may be intercepted while being transmitted across the Internet. 
   Existing video conferencing systems such as TANDBERG&#39;s BORDER CONTROLLER™, a component of TANDBERG&#39;s EXPRESSWAY™ firewall traversal solution, requires the use of TANDBERG Gatekeepers or TANDBERG traversal enabled endpoints. While allowing firewall traversal, the EXPRESSWAY™ solution still requires user intervention to select and trust a range of ports on a firewall and requires the purchase of TANDBERG equipment to use existing legacy video conference endpoints that are not traversal-enabled. The V2IU™ series of products from Polycom, Inc., are Application Level Gateways (ALG) that act as protocol-aware firewalls that automate the selection and trusting of ports, but as such, multiple ports are still used when sending traffic between endpoints with the risk of having such traffic being blocked by a non-protocol-aware firewall. Further, such an ALG does not provide for secure communication. The PATHFINDER™ series of products from RadVision, Ltd., provides for firewall traversal via multiplexing to a single port, but still requires opening a port on a firewall. Multiplexing is implemented by taking sections of data from each of the data streams coming through the various ports and placing them alternately into a single stream. Thus, the resulting stream is simply a train of interleaved data bits that are not recognized as any particular communication protocol. At the destination end point, a packet constructor picks each data bit and places it in the appropriate stream on the appropriate port and rebuilds the original stream. 
   Similar systems have been implemented for voice, VoIP, and data over IP communication systems. Each either relies on a proprietary system or equipment or relies on actually selecting and opening multiple ports in a firewall that could leave the underlying network vulnerable to malicious electronic attacks. 
   BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
   The present invention is directed to a system and method for transporting multiport protocol traffic using a single-port protocol that is known to be transmitted on a port that is typically open on standard firewalls. Multiport protocol traffic from a first endpoint is converted in to a single-port protocol for transport across a network. The traffic is then reconverted to the multiport protocol and directed to the appropriate ports at a targeted second endpoint. In being converted into the single-port protocol, the traffic may then traverse a firewall by using a well-known port, such that little or no reconfiguration of the firewall is required. In so doing, the risk of human error leaving a network vulnerable to malicious attacks is reduced. Moreover, instead of creating an unrecognizable data stream, which may still be rejected by more-advanced firewalls, such as through multiplexing, the various embodiments of the present invention actually creates a known, single-port communication protocol. 
   The foregoing has outlined rather broadly the features and technical advantages of the present invention in order that the detailed description of the invention that follows may be better understood. Additional features and advantages of the invention will be described hereinafter which form the subject of the claims of the invention. It should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the conception and specific embodiment disclosed may be readily utilized as a basis for modifying or designing other structures for carrying out the same purposes of the present invention. It should also be realized by those skilled in the art that such equivalent constructions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims. The novel features which are believed to be characteristic of the invention, both as to its organization and method of operation, together with further objects and advantages will be better understood from the following description when considered in connection with the accompanying figures. It is to be expressly understood, however, that each of the figures is provided for the purpose of illustration and description only and is not intended as a definition of the limits of the present invention. 

   
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     For a more complete understanding of the present invention, reference is now made to the following descriptions taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawing, in which: 
       FIG. 1  is a diagram illustrating the flow of packets in a typical IP communication system; 
       FIG. 2  is a diagram illustrating an IP communication system configured according to one embodiment of the present invention; 
       FIG. 3  is a diagram illustrating an IP communication system configured according to another embodiment of the present invention, which includes encryption; 
       FIG. 4  is a diagram illustrating the handling of packets; and 
       FIG. 5  is a flowchart showing for an embodiment of the invention, example steps that may be employed to traverse a firewall. 
   

   DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
   A variety of protocols require the use of multiport traffic. Whether the traffic is data between applications, voice communications, or video conferencing, whenever multiport traffic is used there is a possibility of some or all of the traffic being blocked by a firewall between two devices that are attempting to communicate. As an example, video conferencing systems, whether they are based on H.323, SIP, or other similar multimedia communication protocols, use multiple ports and multiple protocols in order to enable two-way audio and video communication. The communication protocols specify different types of traffic that may be sent between endpoints which include media traffic (voice, video, and the like) along with the control traffic (camera, connection control, and the like). The media traffic is comprised of data for the images and sound being transmitted between endpoints with the control traffic comprising data used to control the connection between endpoints and the features of the endpoint (e.g., camera direction, zoom, and the like). Due to its higher throughput rate, UDP may typically be utilized for the real-time communication traffic between endpoints. TCP may be utilized for traffic requiring data integrity (e.g., control traffic). As such, video conferencing systems typically make use of both TCP and UDP to transport the multimedia data to enable communication. The ports that are typically used to enable the two-way communication include various ports across the well-known ports, the registered ports, and the dynamic ports. Firewalls are usually set up to block unrequested traffic and/or traffic coming in on dynamic ports. Furthermore, UDP does not provide a mechanism for identifying received traffic as requested traffic. Thus, programs and endpoints that send traffic conforming to UDP are at risk of having that traffic blocked by the remote endpoint&#39;s firewall for both being unrequested and being sent on a blocked port. 
   Referring to  FIG. 1 , video conference endpoint  10  attempts to send multimedia data to video conference endpoint  15 . Multiport packets  100  sent from well-known port  1010 , registered port  7030 , and dynamic ports  50148 - 50153  are being transmitted to video conference endpoint  15 . Firewall  12  passes all the outgoing traffic (packets  100 ) on all ports since this traffic has originated from the network inside of firewall  12 . The traffic is transmitted across Internet  16  and is received by firewall  13 , which is operating in a standard mode. In the standard mode, firewall  13  blocks dynamic ports and unrequested traffic (packets  101 ), such that only the TCP traffic (packets  102 ) on well-known port  1010  is received by endpoint  15 . Thus, with each endpoint being behind their respective firewalls, neither two-way nor one-way communication can take place. 
   Referring to  FIG. 2 , video conference endpoint  10  again attempts to send multimedia data (packets  100 ) to video conference endpoint  15 , this time with network devices  21  and  24  in the system. In this embodiment, endpoint  10  is a video conference endpoint that uses a multiple port communication protocol in order to establish communication with endpoint  15 . For the purposes of this example, endpoint  10  uses ports  1010 ,  7030 ,  50148 - 50153 . The data transmitted using ports  1010  and  50149 - 50150  utilize TCP as the transport protocol while the data transmitted using ports  7030 ,  50148 , and  50151 - 50153  utilize UDP as the transport protocol. Packets from each of these ports conforming to these various protocols and sub-protocols are received by network device  21 . It should be noted that additional or alternative examples of endpoints may use more or fewer ports of different numbers based in part on the applications or protocols used to facilitate multimedia communication. 
   The received packets are encapsulated to conform to a protocol used by devices  21  and  24  for transmitting data, which may include, but is not limited to: TCP, UDP, Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP), Datagram Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP), Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP), and the like. Device  21  receives packets  100  from endpoint  10  that conform to both TCP and UDP, encapsulates each of multiport packets  100  into single-port packets  200  that conform to a single-port communication protocol used by devices  21  and  24 , and sends packets  200  to device  24 . The method of encapsulation may comprise using some or all of the information (header and data) within each of packets  100  as the data section for encapsulated packets  200 . 
   The encapsulated packets are sent to device  24  using any of the well-known or registered ports, which are the ports that are typically open in standard firewalls. One such well-known port that could be chosen is port  443 , which is commonly reserved for HTTPS traffic by ICANN and is commonly open by default on most firewalls. While the packets may be sent along any of the well-known, registered, or dynamic ports, the preferable port used may be a port that is commonly open on most firewalls in their standard configurations (e.g., the well-known ports, certain registered ports, and the like). 
   Firewall  12  inspects the traffic from device  21  before sending it out through Internet  16  to device  24 . When the traffic arrives at firewall  13 , it inspects the traffic, determines that it is valid traffic on a well-known port, and passes it along to device  24 . 
   Device  24  receives encapsulated single-port packets  200  sent from device  21 . Device  24  then reconstructs multiport packets  100  using packets  200 . Reconstruction may be performed by any suitable method including hash-like functions or tables. As an example, header information within one of packets  200  may be an input to a hash-like function that returns the destination IP address and port numbers for a given packet. In the case of a hash-like table, device  21  may use a portion of the header or data in each of packets  100  as the index of a hash-like table and then convert packets  100  to packets  200 . Device  24  upon receiving packets  200 , may use a portion of the header or data in each of packets  200  as the index of a hash-like table and then reconvert packets  200  back to packets  100 , recovering the original IP addresses and ports based on information stored in the hash-like table. 
   From the original headers, device  24  determines for each packet that it is for delivery to endpoint  15 . Device  24  then sends the packets to endpoint  15  using each packet&#39;s destination port. Thus, if a port and protocol are advantageously chosen (such as port  443  and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)), communications traffic from endpoint  10  may be sent to endpoint  15  with no modification or user intervention to traverse firewalls  12  and  13 . While one-way communication is described (from endpoint  10  to endpoint  15 ) it is noted that each of devices  21  and  24  may perform the steps of receiving multiple packets, encapsulation, port translation, decapsulation, and resending multiple packets in order to enable two-way communication between endpoints  10  and  15 . Additional or alternative embodiments may use any of the well-known or registered ports that are typically or commonly open in standard firewalls to send packets between devices  21  and  24 . While any of the well-known, registered, or dynamic ports may be used, it is preferable to select a port that is commonly open in firewalls. 
   It should be noted that in additional or alternative embodiments of the present invention, network or other errors may occasionally lead to lost or corrupted packets and some protocols (such as TCP) specify that in such cases these lost or corrupted packets be resent, which is at odds with maintaining real-time communication. With real-time communication, current data takes precedence over lost previous data since resent packets of previously lost or corrupt data may arrive too late to be useful. As such, when receiving a request to resend a packet containing real-time data (e.g. data corresponding to the audio or video of the communication) devices  21  and  24  may simply ignore the resend request or, alternatively, send a current data packet masquerading as the previously sent and subsequently lost packet, as alternate data. 
   Referring to  FIG. 3 , device  31  adds encryption layer  311  to the data. Any method or algorithm of encryption may be used including, but not limited to: 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES); Triple Data Encryption Standard (TDES); Skipjack, or the like. Some or all of each packet received may be encrypted, including the header, which contains the source and destination port numbers associated with the packet. With all of the packets  100  from endpoint  10  having an added layer of encryption and becoming packets  300 , the media traffic along with the control traffic between endpoints  10  and  15  are secured for transmission across Internet  16 . Device  34  receives secure packets  300  and removes encryption layer  311  before reconstructing packets  100 . The reconstructed packets  100  are then dispersed to endpoint  15  addressed to the appropriate ports expected by endpoint  15 . 
   In alternative or additional embodiments, devices  21 / 31  and  24 / 34  may also qualify their incoming traffic in order to securely pass traffic associated with the connection between endpoints  10  and  15 . As an example, endpoint  10 , upon being connected to device  21 / 31 , may register itself with device  21 / 31  as a video conferencing endpoint. When endpoint  10  begins using network ports for a conference call or other connection, device  21 / 31  may identify those ports as being used and, if appropriate, begin converting and encrypting the traffic associated with such ports. This qualification and registration process my be performed by the use of a hash-like function, so that device  21 / 31  may efficiently perform the qualification. As an example, endpoint  10  may register port  50152  and start sending packets. For every packet received, the source IP address and port may be the inputs to a hash-like function that determines whether a received packet is qualified for further processing and transmission. In the case of a hash-like table, device  24  may use a portion of the header or data in each of packets  200  as the index of a hash-like table and then determine whether a packet is qualified based on information stored in the hash-like table. 
   While each of devices  21  and  24  is depicted connected to a single video conferencing system, they may be connected to multiple and various video conference systems, H.323 gatekeepers, H.323 gateways, SIP proxies, SIP registrars, or the like. When multiple video conferencing systems are connected to a device, such as device  21 , any connections or calls that do not require traversing a firewall may accordingly not be converted into a single-port communication protocol. As an example, if two video conference endpoints are on the same network behind a firewall and are engaging in communications, this traffic does not pass through a firewall (the traffic is only transmitted on the internal network). Thus, devices  21 / 31  may recognize this situation and, accordingly, not encapsulate nor encrypt the traffic between two such endpoints. 
   Additionally, device  21  need not be a stand-alone device as its functionality may be integrated into any other network device including, but not limited to: video conference systems, firewalls, H.323 gateways, SIP proxies, SIP registrars or the like. Alternative embodiments may also send traffic between endpoints  10  and  15  that conform to any number of standards or protocols for multimedia communication including, but not limited to the H.323 and SIP protocols by converting the multiport communication protocols into a single-port protocol that uses a port that is typically open on most firewalls. 
     FIG. 4  is a diagram illustrating the handling of packets. Devices implementing the various embodiments of the invention receive multiple IP data packets ( 400 - 403 ) from multiple ports ( 1010 ,  7040 ,  50148 , . . . , n). Each packet has an IP header ( 4001 / 4011 / 4021 / 4031 ) and an IP data section ( 4002 / 4012 / 4022 / 4032 ). The IP header contains information for properly delivering a packet to a destination including, among other things: a source IP address, a destination IP address, and the total length of the packet. The IP data section contains the data being transmitted, which is usually another packet conforming to a different protocol such as TCP, UDP, or the like. The TCP and UDP packets ( 4003 / 4013 / 4023 / 4033 ) found within IP packets  400 - 403 , each also have a header ( 4004 / 4014 / 4024 / 4034 ) and data ( 4005 / 4015 / 4025 / 4035 ) sections. Headers  4004 / 4014 / 4024 / 4034  of TCP and UDP packets  4003 / 4013 / 4023 / 4033  have the source and destination ports of a packet. 
   Each packet received is treated the same regardless of the packet&#39;s source port or to which protocol the packet conforms. After being received, each IP packet&#39;s data section ( 4042 / 4052 / 4062 ) may be encrypted and then become the data section of a new packet, which may conform to a different protocol for single-port communication. As an example, packet  407  is the encrypted TCP packet  4063  of IP packet  406 . IP packet  420  contains TCP packet  4203 , whose TCP data section  4205  is packet  407 . This method allows the original source and destination ports identified in packet  406 &#39;s TCP header to be saved and also encrypted such that when packet  420  is transmitted across the Internet, it may not be identified as using a port associated with video conferencing, further increasing security. Additionally, in creating a new TCP packet, the port address may effectively be changed. As an example, a packet received from port  1010  could be sent out on port  443 , with the original source port being saved in an encrypted form within packet  407 . TCP data section  4205  of packet  420  may also contain encrypted or non-encrypted UDP packets, RTP packets, or IP packets instead of the encrypted TCP packet portrayed. As an example, IP packet  406  may be the TCP data  4205  of packet  420 . Accordingly, additional or alternative embodiments may encrypt the entire IP packet ( 404 - 406 ) instead of or in addition to the IP data sections ( 4042 / 4052 / 4062 ). 
     FIG. 5  is a flowchart that shows for an embodiment of the invention, example steps that may be employed by devices  31  and  34  to traverse a firewall. An endpoint, when connected to a network, first registers with device  31  by the endpoint identifying itself as a compliant endpoint (e.g., it is an endpoint that conforms to H.323, SIP, VoIP, or the like), as shown by step  501 . 
   On a given network, multiple devices may be connected, as such, device  31  may receive traffic from many devices within that network. Thus, device  31  qualifies the traffic it receives to ensure that the traffic sent to device  34  is appropriate traffic. This is shown in step  502  and may be accomplished by comparing a given packet&#39;s source IP and port addresses to those of endpoints that have registered with device  31 . In step  503 , device  31  encrypts the previously qualified traffic securing the communication between two endpoints using any suitable encryption method including, but limited to: AES 128-bit, TDES, Skipjack, or the like. In step  504 , the encrypted traffic is then encapsulated to conform to a single port protocol, such as SSL, by placing the previously encrypted packet into a new packet conforming to SSL protocol. As shown by step  505 , the encapsulated traffic is then forwarded to device  34 . 
   In step  506 , device  34  receives the single port traffic from device  31  and is diffused by step  507  by restoring the original IP addresses and port numbers to the individual packets. In step  508 , this diffused traffic is then decrypted, thus, recovering the original multimedia and control communication information within the packets. In step  509 , the packets are then restored to their original transport protocol, such as TCP, UDP, or the like. With the packets being fully restored, they are then forwarded to the destination endpoint by device  34 , as shown by step  510 . 
   It is noted that while the disclosure has used the communication between two video conference endpoints as an example, it is understood that the systems and methods described may be used by other programs, applications, communications systems, and the like, that use multiport protocols for communication. As such, embodiments of the invention may be used for audio systems VoIP systems, or any other system that uses a multiport protocol to transfer data between devices. Referring back to  FIG. 2  as an example, endpoints  10  and  15  may be VoIP endpoints engaging in voice communication. In this embodiment the multiport VoIP protocol traffic from endpoint  10  may be received by device  21 , converted to a single port protocol by device  21 , encapsulated by device  21 , transmitted to device  24 , decapsulated by device  24 , converted back to the original multiport protocol by device  24 , transmitted to endpoint  15 , and received by endpoint  15 , as described in further detail above. The same holds true for other types of programs, equipment, or applications using a multiport protocol to transfer data across a network. 
   Although the present invention and its advantages have been described in detail, it should be understood that various changes, substitutions and alterations can be made herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims. Moreover, the scope of the present application is not intended to be limited to the particular embodiments of the process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, means, methods and steps described in the specification. As one of ordinary skill in the art will readily appreciate from the disclosure of the present invention, processes, machines, manufacture, compositions of matter, means, methods, or steps, presently existing or later to be developed that perform substantially the same function or achieve substantially the same result as the corresponding embodiments described herein may be utilized according to the present invention. Accordingly, the appended claims are intended to include within their scope such processes, machines, manufacture, compositions of matter, means, methods, or steps.