Managing peer-to-peer access to a device behind a firewall

摘要

The described arrangements and procedures provide for peer-to-peer communications with a device that is protected by a firewall. To accomplish this, a receiving device receives a communication from the firewall protected device. The communication includes device access information necessary to communicate with the firewall protected device. The receiving device determines whether the device access information identifies a valid communication pathway to the firewall protected device. The receiving device receives a request from a different device for the information needed to communicate with the firewall protected device. Responsive to receiving the request and responsive to determining that the communication pathway to the device is valid, the device access information is communicated to the different device. The different device can use the communicated device access information to initiate a peer-to-peer communication session with the firewall protected device.