Video Conferencing Behind a Firewall?

JShadow21 asks: "I work at a research lab at a hospital. We want to collaborate with colleagues across the pond via video conferencing however the firewall here is very restrictive. There are way too many ports that needed to be opened for H.323 to work so the IT guys won't do that. What alternatives are there? I was considering using an SSH proxy in order to use Netmeeting, or else possibly a web based solution."

Comments

Your IT guys are lazy

[grub]

The Netmeeting rules in our PIX configs need only 5 TCP ports: LDAP, 522, 1503, h323 1731. If you know the IPs of the remote side you can open up a very restrictive set of holes for incoming "calls" or you can initiate the connections and not worry about opening up incoming holes altogether (if you use NAT/PAT this is easiest.)

Remember: your IT guys aren't running the show, they're there to help you do your job (and I'm an IT weenie at a research lab where Netmeetings are not uncommon...)

web based solution

[sycotic]

we use http://www.webex.com/ at our work, works a treat behind a multitude of firewalls and maybe even proxies if I remember rightly.

you should check it out :)