I'd love to connect, but stuck behind a CGNAT

[R2Pitou]

I noticed Freenet already performs UDP hole punching. Is there a reason the protocol doesn't support an opt-in relay fallback similar to libp2p Circuit Relay or TURN for peers behind CGNAT?

I understand that relays introduce trade-offs around bandwidth, incentives, and potential centralization. However, I wondered whether an opt-in, capacity-limited relay mechanism has been considered. For example, nodes could volunteer to relay for only a small number of peers, with assignments randomized or periodically rotated to avoid creating long-lived "supernodes" and to spread the bandwidth cost across the network.

Was this approach considered and rejected for architectural reasons, or is it something that might be explored in the future?

The reason I ask is that CGNAT is becoming increasingly common, particularly on residential fiber, mobile, and IPv4-constrained ISPs. According to my understanding, we're all under CGNAT in Cambodia regardless of povider.

[utkars8055]

So, i am using hotspot from phone and my NAT traversal is failing and udp is blocked by carrier. I use cloudfare warp to start it and then disconnect then after some time it automatically connects.

[rabindra789]

This is actually very close to a problem I’m facing in my own project, JeanGrey, a pure P2P messaging system. I’m wondering what you think would be the best approach when both peers are behind CGNAT and UDP hole punching fails.

Would a decentralized, temporary relay system be practical, or do you think something like TURN/libp2p Circuit Relay is still the better approach?