System Menu
The system menu is intended for performing a set of utility operations such as: hide GUI, quit application and change PIPE settings. The first two ones are simple actions, both of them are executed in the following way:
- Choose the System button.
- Select the required action using the arrow buttons.
- To have the selected action performed, choose the Confirm button.
Activation of the third operation brings the user to the Settings submenu, with a number of changeable PIPE options: preferred language, sound mode, TCP and UDP ports and firewall properties.
Note: any changes made to the settings only come into an effect after the PIPE application is restarted.
Let us consider each option more closely.
Language option allows the language selection for the phone user interface and help topic.
The Sound mode determines the Windows sound interface to be used: Direct Sound or Waveform Audio. In general, Direct Sound is preferable but for certain configurations Waveform Audio works better. Which of the two interfaces is more suitable for your configuration can be found out experimentally through a loop-back call.
Voice detector is useful feature designed to remove outgoing network traffic when the user keeps silence. But as soon as one begins speaking, activity detector resumes sending the voice packets. User can enable or disable this option.
TCP ports is a list of ports that can be used to establish connection between two hosts. For incoming calls PIPE works as a TCP server, which listens to TCP connection requests. For outgoing calls this list is used for successive TCP connection attempts. It is optimal to have the list composed of 2-5 TCP ports.
UDP ports is a list of ports which may be applied for real-time voice communication. Actually this list is used for scanning after the TCP handshake. The goal of the procedure is to find an open UDP port which is suitable for direct voice connection. The list of ports can consist of up to 50 port values.
You can view the above mentioned list of ports, add a new port or remove existing ones.
Add a new port value.
- Select the list of ports and choose the Confirm button.
- Choose the Auxiliary button.
- Enter a new port.
- Choose the Confirm button again.
Remove port
- Select the desired list type from the "Settings" menu.
- Select the extraneous port from the list.
- Choose the Cancel button to delete the selected port.
- To confirm the deletion, choose the Confirm button.
Firewall options depend on the type of the proxy server used for IP packets filtering. In the simple case the user doesn't need to care about the proxy server and uses the direct TCP connection for outgoing calls. Otherwise if the direct TCP connections are forbidden by the LAN administrator, the user has to explicitly specify the protocol type used by proxy in the PIPE application. Next the user should choose Arrow Dn and menu options to enter the address of the proxy server and the communication port (usually 1080). In case of Socks-5 protocol the additional information, such as user name and password has to be entered. It is important to emphasize that proxy settings can help you make primary TCP connection through firewall in outgoing calls only. So, to have a successful voice communication at least one open UDP port should exist! For receiving incoming calls you need to have a TCP port open for incoming connections.
|