Server/client over router

[kltye]

Hi,

I'm running the latest versions of SageTV and the Client. While the networking works fine when both the server and client are on the same internal network, once I move my client outside of the internal network and access it via the router, the client can no longer access the server. Yes, I've forwarded port 42024 on my router. As such, I'm not sure why this doesn't work. Am I missing some settings here?

The reason I do this is not only to access Sage via the Internet, but also from within my building as well. I live in a dorm, and I connect a Linksys WRT54G router to the building's internal network. I'd like to be able to access Sage when I'm in a friend's room, for example.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

[gplasky]

I'm pretty sure there is more than one port to forward. And good luck accessing it via the Internet. If you're going to try to stream mpeg2 over the Internet you need a pretty fat pipe. People have issues streaming mpeg2 over 802.11 b wireless, let alone the Internet.

Gerry

[kltye]

Oh I wasn't planning to stream over the Internet. I was just going to do admin stuff over the internet, and stream over my dorm's local network.

[Gog]

Use the web server then. You won't need to install a client to check up on your recordings...

There are restriction but it`s a lot more foolproof

Gog

[ke6guj]

Gog, I think you misunderstood him. he will need the webserver to do internet-based admin, but will also need SageClient to view recordings from his friend's dorm which is still on a "local network" ie:100Mbit, but on the other side of his router.

kltye, what you could do is temporarily place the Sage server in your router's DMZ to make sure that the router has enough throughput to stream from your local network to the dorm's local network. Depending on the brand and model, some residential routers may not be able to upload more than 5Mbit of data through the routers WAN port, even though the WAN port is running at 10Mbit or 100Mbit. Once you know that the router can physically support the client, then you can move the server out of the DMZ and find out what ports need to be opened. A packet sniffer may be able to help.


edit: found this posted elsewhere in the forum:
42024 is for the client/server connection
7818 is for streaming
7760 is for the EPG download

try those ports, and then try to plug your client directly into the dorm network, bypassing your friend's router, to eliminate his router as a possible problem.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by kltye

Hi,

I'm running the latest versions of SageTV and the Client. While the networking works fine when both the server and client are on the same internal network, once I move my client outside of the internal network and access it via the router, the client can no longer access the server. Yes, I've forwarded port 42024 on my router. As such, I'm not sure why this doesn't work. Am I missing some settings here?

You are telling to the client to connect to the server through the router using your router's external "dorm-network" IP address, when using the client in your friend's dorm room?

Have you set up your webserver plug-in yet? That one will be fun to configure, since you have your personal internal IP address, your dorm room's IP address (how is that assigned; static, DHCP?), and then the university's actual internet IP address.

[Crashless]

Most college networks should be able to handle the traffic you need, but they might also block all kinds of ports. If your friend has a router, your best bet is probably to just setup a VPN on your own network, then tunnel through to it from your friend's. it will remove most of the need for port forwarding, server names, and the like.

You might need to setup a dynamic ip server. Check out NO-IP. It's free, and it will make connecting to your server from anywhere MUCH easier.

[kltye]

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who responded

Yes, I've looked at the webserver plugin but have yet to try it out.

I actually run a couple of servers - one back in my home country, and one sitting in my dorm room. They're both reachable with a DynDns.org domain... it is extremely useful, especially since it keeps track of IP changes.

The building I'm in is a pretty unique dorm; it's occupied by three different schools in downtown Chicago. Acquiring IP addresses for all 1,700 of us in the building was deemed too expensive, so we're all behind one IP address and so we're basically NAT'd for Internet access. (Actually I managed to get a static external IP for myself here, but that's another story). So no, we don't filter ports within the internal network.

I'm fully aware that the routing capacity of residential routers top out far below 100Mbits/sec, but I think my router is capable of handling 10Mbits/sec (far above the bitrate of my mpeg2 files).

After messing around with the network, I found out that forwarding the appropriate ports on my router is sufficient, but even putting my laptop in my friend's router's DMZ is insufficient. Plugging it directly into the wall (i.e. dorm internal network) was successful though So I'm not sure why my friend's router was screwing it all up (maybe because it's a Belkin ). Anyhow I'll have to check and see what's causing that.

Meanwhile, thanks again for the help. I really appreciate it.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by kltye

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who responded

Yes, I've looked at the webserver plugin but have yet to try it out.

I actually run a couple of servers - one back in my home country, and one sitting in my dorm room. They're both reachable with a DynDns.org domain... it is extremely useful, especially since it keeps track of IP changes.

The building I'm in is a pretty unique dorm; it's occupied by three different schools in downtown Chicago. Acquiring IP addresses for all 1,700 of us in the building was deemed too expensive, so we're all behind one IP address and so we're basically NAT'd for Internet access. (Actually I managed to get a static external IP for myself here, but that's another story). So no, we don't filter ports within the internal network.

Thats what I figured. So your basically double-NAT'ed, and that can increase the difficulty in getting internet stuff forwarded to your computer. Sounds like you got some help from the school's IT staff with some IP addressing and forwarding

I'm fully aware that the routing capacity of residential routers top out far below 100Mbits/sec, but I think my router is capable of handling 10Mbits/sec (far above the bitrate of my mpeg2 files).

Good. I haven't seen it mentioned lately, but I had seen router reviews in the past that showed that some residentential routers could barely saturate a T1 line, 1.5Mbit. And that would probably be insufficient for streaming.

After messing around with the network, I found out that forwarding the appropriate ports on my router is sufficient, but even putting my laptop in my friend's router's DMZ is insufficient. Plugging it directly into the wall (i.e. dorm internal network) was successful though So I'm not sure why my friend's router was screwing it all up (maybe because it's a Belkin ). Anyhow I'll have to check and see what's causing that.

Thats weird that even running the laptop on the DMZ was insufficient. Good to know that it seems to be the friend's router, hopefully just needs some more configurating. I'd try a different router if you can. Keep testing and let us know if you get it knocked out.

[kltye]

I tried to do it over a Linksys WRT54g in a friend's room and it didn't work either. I'm really stumped as to why this may be happening...

[Crashless]

Have you looked into a VPN? That would solve all your issues. No need to forward ports anywhere.

[kltye]

Hmm that's interesting. Haven't played with that yet. I'll give it a try; thanks!

[ke6guj]

Yup, sounds like it may be time to go VPN and forget about dealing with all the hassles of multiple routers causing you issues. But then, you get to play with setting up your VPN

[ke6guj]

Wow, learn something new everyday. I didnt' realize that Windows XP Pro had the built-in software to be a VPN server. I usually use Windows 2000 or 2003 Server to set up VPN.

Here are a couple links for you to look at:
http://www.onecomputerguy.com/networ...vpn_server.htm
http://asia.cnet.com/enterprise/neta...9050037,00.htm
http://compnetworking.about.com/od/v...nwindowsxp.htm

You will still need to open up the VPN ports in your router and map them to the VPN server. =PPTP - TCP port 1723 and IP Protocol 47 (GRE) . GRE should be covered by simply allowing PPTP pass-through in your router. You may need to enable PPTP pass-through on the client routers also.

[kltye]

Yep, I've played with VPNs before as well. Too bad a "real" VPN server on Server 2003 (which is what my media machine runs) needs dual-NIC; I have only one. Anyways, I used the incoming connections thing and after some tweaking, it worked So now I can tunnel through my friend's router into my server and stream video from there! The only problem is that the overhead of VPN seems to degrade performance quite a bit, especially over my wireless connections (both 11g). But anyhow, VPNs are pretty awesome and now I'll include it in my networking ideas for problems like this :P

Thanks guys!

[Crashless]

Originally Posted by kltye

Yep, I've played with VPNs before as well. Too bad a "real" VPN server on Server 2003 (which is what my media machine runs) needs dual-NIC; I have only one. Anyways, I used the incoming connections thing and after some tweaking, it worked So now I can tunnel through my friend's router into my server and stream video from there! The only problem is that the overhead of VPN seems to degrade performance quite a bit, especially over my wireless connections (both 11g). But anyhow, VPNs are pretty awesome and now I'll include it in my networking ideas for problems like this :P

Thanks guys!

Well, I think your problem is 5-fold:

1. Yes, the VPN traffic does add overhead
2. Your router only connects to the network at 10mbps
3. Your friend's router only connects to the network at 10mbps.
4. You add 2 sets of 802.11g overhead
5. 802.11 security over head (you ARE using WPA, right? )

All those things added together (and probably 4 or 5 others I didn't mention) probably are reducing you to 3-4 mbps TOPS.

I'm glad to hear you got things working though. It must be pretty nice to be able to access it directly from anywhere on campus...football games in a lecture anyone?

[kltye]

Actually our building's internal network runs at 100Mbps... I think my G card doesn't like G-rates: Doing a bandwidth test between two G machines I get 11Mbps TOPS. Pretty frustrating.

Yeah, I'm using WPA...

Unfortunately, this building isn't exactly on-campus, because of how it's set up (Google "University Center of Chicago" or "superdorm" and you'll see it's not exactly owned by a single school). Also, even though I have a public IP address, all ports are in a filtered mode, except for a couple like web and ftp. Annoyed like hell, but oh well...

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by kltye

Yep, I've played with VPNs before as well. Too bad a "real" VPN server on Server 2003 (which is what my media machine runs) needs dual-NIC; I have only one. Anyways, I used the incoming connections thing and after some tweaking, it worked So now I can tunnel through my friend's router into my server and stream video from there! The only problem is that the overhead of VPN seems to degrade performance quite a bit, especially over my wireless connections (both 11g). But anyhow, VPNs are pretty awesome and now I'll include it in my networking ideas for problems like this :P

Thanks guys!

YOu don't need 2 NIC's for 2003, you can set up a VPN using only 1 NIC. I have set up a couple servers that way. You just have to do a "custom config" in the RRAS wizard. Which, if I read your post correctly, may be what you did.

I'd hard-wire your server instead of wireless, that'll help a bit, and maybe bring some Cat-5 with you when you go a visiting your friend to improve the performance.

[kltye]

I would wire my server, except that the current layout of the room does not permit it.

What I did for my VPN was to go to network connections, then set up new connection. I selected incoming connection, then specified it to allow users to connect via VPN.

If I use the configure my server wizard and select to install a VPN server, it asks me to specify a NIC for the incoming connection, and another NIC that connects to my network. Where do I access the RRAS wizard? Thanks!

[ke6guj]

if you go to configure my server, add in the "remote access/VPN" role, the Routing and remote access "RRAS" wizard should appear.

select custom configuration, VPN access, and then finish out the wizard. Done.

if the RRAS service is already installed and you did not complete the wizard, you should be able to open RRAS in adminstrative tools and right-click on the server name and "configure and enable routing and remote access", you may need to disable it first, then do the configure if it is greyed out.