Ship the full SIP stack include OSTel as a Sandstorm App

[psivesely]

Sandstorm [1] has become a popular platform for individuals and smaller groups to self-host services. Not only does it allow for super easy setup of various services, but uses containerization technologies to allow multiple services to run on the same physical server, while balancing resources and lessening security concerns. Guardian Project seeks to create an open-standards telephony network (OSTN) [2] and encourages users to self-host SIP networks. As it is, there is no easy way to deploy a full OSTel stack. There was a project using Chef that has not been updated in multiple years [3], and the instructions are lacking [4]. I believe the easier you make installing OSTel, the faster OSTN can spread, and the more decentralized the network may become. This in turn encourages more interest and outside development, so it may well be worth your time later to look into support efforts like Sandstorm now.

[1] https://sandstorm.io/
[2] https://dev.guardianproject.info/projects/ostn/wiki/Wiki
[3] https://github.com/guardianproject/chef-ostn
[4] https://dev.guardianproject.info/projects/ostel/wiki/Server_Documentation

[lazzarello]

As the author, yes, I would like to collaborate. Previously, the big blocker was the SSL CA requirement. Now that Let's Encrypt is running, the full stack can be automated. I'll check Sandstorm. I'm not familiar with it.

[lazzarello]

@fowlslegs Sandstorm looks interesting indeed! Lemme see what's required to make an app. The first thing that comes to mind as a challenge is full-duplex UDP traffic to a static IP. NAT + UDP over dynamic ports equals pain and suffering.

[lazzarello]

@fowlslegs Upon furtuer inspection, the current development model of Sandstorm makes running a SIP backend impossible, due to limitations of the networking stack. SIP and Ostel since it implements SIP, require dynamic UDP ports to be available to the public Internet with no IP address translation between the gateway and the server. A comment on the Sandstorm issue tracker confirms this is not a feature that is implemented, though it is two years old. It would require inspection into the internals of Sandstorm to determine if UDP packets will pass unaltered.

[paulproteus]

Hi all,

I'm a Sandstorm core dev, and I'm supremely excited about the idea of OSTel getting sandstorm-ified.

I know there will be some technical work required to make it happen; I'll attempt to provide more info here soon, but upcoming travel might make that possible, so for now, this just an expression of strong excitement.