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You need a server for holepunching/STUN via IPv4, but not for IPv6 since each client has a unique IP instead of being behind the router's address.


I've setup Minecraft/web servers which required no server for holepunching. Just plain old IPv4 with port forwarding.


The "with port forwarding" is the problem there. That assumes you have access to your NAT resolver to add the rule, which isn't a fair assumption to hold. People at colleges, businesses, hosted events, etc. need to do NAT traversal (or be on IPv6) in order to do P2P.

I didn't see that you mentioned UPnP in the OP though, sorry. I'd assume downloading metadata from a signalling server if you don't need it for traversal is completely optional - most P2P networks have an initial list of peers to connect to to bootstrap new clients.




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