On Sep 21, 2008, at 9:06 PM, Z. S. O. wrote:
It's not easier to get UDP through NATs. It's just as hard or harder.
It must be a widely held error, then, because it's what I hear every time the subject arises. My understanding was that since UDP doesn't have the concept of "streams," most NATs will allow all UDP packets through to a given port one it is first hole-punched.
Yes, that's usually true, especially for home NATs. Some NATs do actually track UDP conversations between endpoints just like TCP streams, though. Traversing a NAT with UDP is /usually/ easier, when you have multiple endpoints you wish to hear from. But don't forget about the other kinds of NATs too, which you'll also have to implement support for. That's what makes it hard: implementing things multiple times for all the different network topologies.
Nat traversal aside, I'm also concerned about performance, and since TCP doesn't make in-order delivery optional, I'm still tempted to stick with UDP...
Not entirely true. In order delivery is preserved to your application, but out-of-order delivery between the host endpoints is supported. Read up on the TCP "selective ACK" feature [1], which basically all OSes made since 1998 or so support. So a missed packet or two doesn't actually require all later data to always be retransmitted. James [1] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2018.txt