How Hipchat Video Live network works

Frédéric Cilia June 3, 2015

Hello,

 

We are trying to install Hipchat Server on our internal server. Everything looks good except One-to-One video chat.

Issue seems to be in our network configuration. All requirements seems to be available, addLive server is reachable,...

We really need your help to know about network flow between Hipchat Server, Client and the internet to understand what’s happen. Can you give us a network scheme of video live connection for Hipchat server ?

 

To test, we are using two server, one server in our network, and one server hosted by Amazon.

We are using four clients, two in our network and two directly connected to the internet.

Our internal server and clients can't be reach from the internet.

 

Server A         -->             Internal

Server B         -->             External

Client A          -->              Internal

Client B          -->              Internal

Client C          -->              External

Client D          -->              External

Tests Cases

1. All Internal

* Client A is calling Client B

* Client B see the call and hang out

* Client A doesn't receive the hang out

 

2. All external

* Client C is calling Client D

* Client D receive the call and hang out

* Video Live call is starting for both Client C & D

 

3. External Server with Internal Client

* Client A is calling Client B

* Client B see the call and hang out

* Client A doesn't receive the hang out

 

4. External Server, caller used an internal client to call an external client

* Client A is calling Client C

* Client C doesn't receive the call

 

5. External Server, caller used an external client to call an internal client

* Client C is calling Client A

* Client A receive the call and hang out

* Video Live is starting for Client A

* Client C is still waiting for the hang out

 

We catch the call request to addLive server using WireShark and try to call it directly in our browser, it works.

It seems than both Client or Internet must be accessible from the internet. Is it the problem ?

 

In our context we must used an internal server for confidentiality reasons. Server side of software must be isolated from the Internet. Can you explain us how we can install an Hipchat Server with all functionalities on this server ?

 

Thanks

 

3 answers

0 votes
Thuy Le June 3, 2015

Hi Frédéric,

I too required an internal closed environment for security reason.

From what I discover so far, only port 443 needs to be open to the internet for video chat to work. I have a SonicWall and I tried to limit the outbound destination to *.addlive.com ( http://www.addlive.com/requirements/) but that wasn't enough and I had to in essence, completely open up port 443. (Haven't had the chance to use Wireshark to see what else is needed)

From the One-to-One Video Chat doc, and from various other threads, it's basically this:

Client needs to communicate to AddLive for the data stream to be established. Then the peer-to-peer will stream.

This seems counter to what I thought the "Get it on lock-down" enterprise level HipChat server was being market as.

Am I wrong in assuming this? (I am just on my second day into trying to figure this all out and I would be happy to be wrong if I am)

Also, with Snapchat buying AddLive, what is the ramification of this?

0 votes
David Maye
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
June 3, 2015

Hi,

Going off of Pietro's comment, the way the 1-1 video service works is almost entirely peer-to-peer and no actual audio/video streams flow through HC Server. Cross video calling (i.e. a user on HC Server 1 calls a user on HC Server 2) isn't supported. 

However, as this doc explains, if the two HipChat clients (registered to the same HC Server) can see each other and connect via UDP 540/541 on the local network (intranet), that connection method will be used for audio/video calling instead of the fallback to AddLive servers using the internet. The fallback is only used when a connection cannot be established locally.

Cheers,
-David 

0 votes
pschaff01
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June 3, 2015

Hey Frédéric,

I believe the issue is actually occurring because of this statement:

It seems than both Client or Internet must be accessible from the internet. Is it the problem ?

This would also explain the result of every test you described above. As it turns out, to guarantee that the video feature will work fine (in order to access addLive), you must be sure that all network requirements from this page are met:

If you can't meet all these requirements on production, I'd suggest (just for testing purposes) you applied all these configurations in a test HipChat Server and then verify if the issue persist.

Hope it helps!

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