This document is intended for use by those at Janet primary-connected organisations who have responsibility for deploying and/or configuring an organisational H.323 gatekeeper. It is intended to be a practical aid and does not consider the technical considerations underlying configuration commands unless these are necessary for the explanation of configuration options. The examples and discussion are confined to those commands necessary (both required and optional) for configuring the gatekeeper to work with the JVCS (Janet Videoconferencing Service). Further configuration options which are not considered here include configuration of QoS (Quality of Service) parameters, firewalls, H.323 proxy servers, NAT (Network Address Translation) traversal servers, and firewall traversal servers.

Words in this document are given their English spelling unless they appear in their Americanised style by the software or operating system, and this is being quoted. As the products are aimed at an international audience, they do tend to use the U.S. spellings – ‘neighbor’ being a common example.

NOTE (A brief note on H.323 equipment terminology as used within this document):
The term ‘endpoint’ refers to any H.323 compatible equipment that has a role in an H.323 (IP videoconferencing) environment. This includes videoconferencing systems, but may also include other gatekeepers, Multipoint Control Units, gateways to other networks or IP telephones. A ‘terminal’ is specifically a video (and/or audio) conferencing system. This is the equipment required by the end-user to make and receive calls and may be studio-based, portable or desk-top equipment. A ‘terminal’ is also sometimes referred to as a CODEC – this is the hardware necessary to encode and decode the audio and video information passed between terminals.

Having completed the original configuration, the person responsible for the gatekeeper should also be aware of the need for maintenance of the gatekeeper software and any operating system software on which it relies. This will most likely involve regularly checking and installing software revisions and upgrades, and security updates and patches.