Jamkazam with pfSense router

[NineEyes]

If you're using JamKazam behind a pfSense router, you might receive this notification when JamKazam starts on Windows:

Warning Check your network! Your network changes packets port-numbers. This may block receiving real-time UDP packet traffic from the Internet. Enabl

Or, you might receive a dialog box from JamKazam while joining a JamKazam session that says this:

JamKazam client network connection test is reporting that your network configuration may not allow you to participate in sessions remotely with others. The reported network configuration is:

'Independent Mapping, Independent Filter, random port, no hairpin'

<snip>

and then perhaps another dialog:

TRANSMITTING PROBLEM: Some JamKazam session peers are not receiving audio packets from you.
Restarting your router and the computer sometimes helps to address this problem.
Also perform the Network Test to verify your network is configured properly.

< snip>

after clicking "OK" on these dialogs you may see the "live tracks" of peers are grayed out.  This is all bad news for your jamming!

Here's one workaround for pfSense:

• Navigate to Firewall > NAT on the Outbound tab
  
• Select Hybrid Outbound NAT
  
• Click Save
  
• Click Add with the up arrow to add a rule to the top of the list
  
• Set Interface to WAN
  
• Set the Protocol to UDP
  
• Set the Source to Network and add the NAT network IP address of LAN (192.168.1.0/24 in may cases)
  
• Leave the Source Port box empty, which indicates any
  
• Set the Destination to Any
  
• Leave the Destination Port box empty
  
• Leave the Translation Address set to Interface Address
  
• Check Static Port to indicate that traffic matching this rule will retain the original source port
  
• Click Save
  
• Click Apply Changes
  

Restart JamKazam.  Rejoin your session.

Note, this change is necessary to allow JamKazam to perform NAT Traversal. It also somewhat reduces the security and enterprise-level functionality of your pfSense router.  If this is a concern, it is easy enough to toggle the Output NAT rule, or change the Output NAT Mode back to Automatic when not using JamKazam.

For more details about disabling source port randomization in pfSense, see the manual here: https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/late...port.html# .

Alternatively using port forwarding (*) or using UPnP might suit your pfSense network better. I've used UPnP with some (**) success. I believe with either alternative, you will still receive the first notification above which may be ignored.

(*) Don't forget to set "Manage->Networking->Configure Port Preferences->Always use the same set of UDP ports" in JamKazam if opting to use manual port forwarding.

(**) By "some" success, UPnP seems to work about half the time.  For the other half, restarting JamKazam and rejoining the session seems to do the trick.