Technical Summary
This document describes a protocol for Network Address Translator
(NAT) traversal for UDP-based communication. This protocol is called
Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE). ICE makes use of the
Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN) protocol and its
extension, Traversal Using Relay NAT (TURN). This document obsoletes
RFC 5245.
Working Group Summary
The document was discussed and reviewed very actively for many years by
many parties. There is much interest in the community because there are
many documents which depend on this document, especially in the RTCWEB
work, and because there are many deployed implementations of the existing
Proposed Standard (RFC 5245). Notable discussions include the decisions of
the "Ta" value (how frequently packets are sent), backwards compatibility with
RFC 5245 endpoints, removal of "aggressive nomination", generalization of
ICE to more than just RTP/RTCP, and generalization of ICE signaling to more
than just SDP offer/answer. There was a long-term, lively discussion with a
large number of folks followed by thorough review by a smaller number of
very interested folks. Consensus was usually not quick, but was broad when
finally reached. One particular point of controversy waws around the Ta value
and packet pacing, which required significant experimentation by working
members in the real world and participation from many other working groups,
especially from the transport area. This point was resolved by finding a technical
solution that all groups were happy with and which seemed to work well in real
world experimentation.
Document Quality
Reviews on specific areas (such as the Ta value) were
done by folks in the transport area. Other reviews were done by members of other
working groups (such as RTCWEB and MMUSIC). The reviews were extensive and
no further review is necessary. The document shepherd has no specific concerns
or issues with the document. There are many RFC 5245 implementations and at
least some of those (especially RTCWEB implementations) are already being updated.
Personnel
The document shepherd is Peter Thatcher. The responsible area director is Ben Campbell.