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jonathanblack
New Contributor III

Allow RTP/UDP Ports For Any IP

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We have several 908e units configured for SIP-to-PRI service from several SIP carriers interfacing to our legacy PRI-based equipment.  These units are not intended to serve as gate-keepers for data access to a LAN, therefore, the firewall is not turned on.  We did explore the firewall option, but it really seemed geared toward traffic passing through, rather than terminating on the unit (for purposes of SIP).

We've configured the SIP trunks with the specific IP addresses of the carriers, and that seems to grant access to allow communication with the carriers' servers for signaling and RTP.  This has worked fine for two carriers, provided we add any RTP addresses as "sip-server secondary" entries. 

We've now brought on a third SIP carrier who tells us that their RTP traffic will be coming from varying IP addresses depending on which underlying carrier is being used--they aren't proxying (is that a word?) the traffic through their servers.  They are recommending that we "specify the ports we can be contacted on for RTP and allow that in our firewall--any UDP traffic for those ports from any originating IP".

The first question is:  How secure is this suggestion?

Secondly: Can this be done on a 908e?  If so, how would we do that?

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Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Allow RTP/UDP Ports For Any IP

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If the firewall is tuned off on the TA908e then the unit will accept RTP from any IP as long as it’s the SIP header.

At the bottom of the SIP INVITE you will see something like this:

c=IN IP4

t=0 0

m=audio 24358 RTP/AVP 18 0 101

a=rtpmap:101 telephone-event/8000

a=ptime:20

View solution in original post

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Anonymous
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Re: Allow RTP/UDP Ports For Any IP

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I do this all the time without a problem.

If the Adtran is setup on a public IP and its firewall is disabled nothing should be blocked by the RTP ports.

View solution in original post

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17 Replies
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Allow RTP/UDP Ports For Any IP

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Is the 908 on a public IP or behind a firewall?

jonathanblack
New Contributor III

Re: Allow RTP/UDP Ports For Any IP

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Public IP

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Allow RTP/UDP Ports For Any IP

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If the firewall is tuned off on the TA908e then the unit will accept RTP from any IP as long as it’s the SIP header.

At the bottom of the SIP INVITE you will see something like this:

c=IN IP4

t=0 0

m=audio 24358 RTP/AVP 18 0 101

a=rtpmap:101 telephone-event/8000

a=ptime:20

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jonathanblack
New Contributor III

Re: Allow RTP/UDP Ports For Any IP

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Ok, thanks for the info.  Is there a debug command I can use to determine if RTP traffic is getting blocked?  I normally use:

debug sip stack messages

debug isdn l2-formatted

jayh
Honored Contributor
Honored Contributor

Re: Allow RTP/UDP Ports For Any IP

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You probably want the firewall turned on as it is used under-the-hood for quite a bit of the functionality of the box.

Create an access-list as follows:

ip access-list standard sip-allow-list

  permit host X.X.X.X

  permit host Y.Y.Y.Y

  permit host Z.Z.Z.Z

Then apply that to your SIP connections:


ip sip access-class sip-allow-list in


You don't need to worry about RTP, it can come from any media gateway of the SIP providers.  It is generally a good thing that RTP go directly to the media gateway.  This tends to minimize latency of routing it through the SIP provider's network.


When you enable the firewall for the first time, you'll want to do so from the console or be careful not to lock yourself out if enabling it remotely. 

jonathanblack
New Contributor III

Re: Allow RTP/UDP Ports For Any IP

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Thanks for the input.  So the "permit host" addresses would be the signaling addresses provided by the SIP provider, and not including any RTP addresses?  Would we not need a rule to handle the RTP servers or is this handled on-the-fly by way of the SIP header as mentioned by @unified, above?

jayh
Honored Contributor
Honored Contributor

Re: Allow RTP/UDP Ports For Any IP

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That's handled automatically.  You want to restrict SIP to known hosts and reject all others to avoid the possibility of someone exploiting your system to place expensive international calls.  RTP is set up within the SIP header as mentioned by @unified.

jonathanblack
New Contributor III

Re: Allow RTP/UDP Ports For Any IP

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Ok, thanks.  Our experience so far has been that even with the firewall off, the only signaling addresses from which it will accept traffic are those specified in the SIP trunk settings either under "sip-server primary" or "sip-server secondary".  However, this is good information for when we enable the firewall.

jayh
Honored Contributor
Honored Contributor

Re: Allow RTP/UDP Ports For Any IP

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jonathanblack wrote:



Ok, thanks.  Our experience so far has been that even with the firewall off, the only signaling addresses from which it will accept traffic are those specified in the SIP trunk settings either under "sip-server primary" or "sip-server secondary".  However, this is good information for when we enable the firewall.


You may be very unpleasantly surprised when you get a phone bill if you don't lock down SIP to known and authorized servers.  I haven't tested simply adding the SIP ACL with firewall not enabled, it may work.  Please lock it down.  Despite their name, the scanners out there aren't very friendly.

jonathanblack
New Contributor III

Re: Allow RTP/UDP Ports For Any IP

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The main reason we haven't already is that when we turned on the firewall on a 908e Gen1 unit, after several hours it seemed to stop accepting traffic at all.  Restarting the unit restored service, but then it happened again a few hours later.  We finally turned the firewall back off and the problem went away.

We might try again with a secondary unit and see if we can make it work reliably.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Allow RTP/UDP Ports For Any IP

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The access-list is not using the Adtran firewall.

You can have the firewall disabled and the ACL will still work.

jonathanblack
New Contributor III

Re: Allow RTP/UDP Ports For Any IP

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Are you referring to the "ip access-list" and "ip sip access-class" commands that @jayh mentioned above?  Will those two commands work without the firewall enabled?  If so, this may be a good option for us in light of the prior problems we've had with the firewall.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Allow RTP/UDP Ports For Any IP

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Yes that will work without the firewall enabled.

You can use similar commands for SSH and HTTP:

ip access-list standard Access

permit 192.168.1.0 0.0.0.225 #range

permit host x.x.x.x #single ip

http ip access-class Access in

http ip secure-access-class Access in

line ssh 0 4

login local-userlist

no shutdown

ip access-class Access in

jonathanblack
New Contributor III

Re: Allow RTP/UDP Ports For Any IP

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Sounds promising, but just to confirm: None of that will impact RTP traffic?  The reason I ask is because in the original problem that generated this post, the SIP provider is telling us that RTP traffic is being blocked.  When they proxied the RTP traffic through their IP (which I have entered as a "sip-server secondary"), the traffic comes through.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Allow RTP/UDP Ports For Any IP

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I do this all the time without a problem.

If the Adtran is setup on a public IP and its firewall is disabled nothing should be blocked by the RTP ports.

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jayh
Honored Contributor
Honored Contributor

Re: Allow RTP/UDP Ports For Any IP

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RTP traffic to a remote media server on a random IP different from the defined SIP server won't be affected.  It will just work.  By limiting the SIP servers with an access list you will protect against fraud. 

jonathanblack
New Contributor III

Re: Allow RTP/UDP Ports For Any IP

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I've just confirmed with the SIP provider that it isn't blocking RTP traffic from "non-registered" IP addresses.  And we're unable to reliably replicate the problem, so I'm going to assume the problem is on the provider's side and close this out.  Thanks to both of you, and , for your input and assistance!