Using Remote File Access to Save Disk Space on Your MBA

[Terwal]

Anybody came across the DHCP issue mentioned above ?

Thanks,

Walter

[riz78612]

clay your a genius. Thanks for letting us know you used to write articles for microsfot.

What qualificaitons do you have?

Originally Posted by clayj

My pleasure! Actually, in a former job (Microsoft) I used to write technical articles all the time, so the article writer in me appreciates being let out occasionally to do some serious writing.

Hmm. It doesn't look like iPhoto provides an option similar to iTunes, which allows you to specify the location where your media (music, movies, etc.) should be stored. For iPhoto, as near as I can tell, it just jams everything into the "iPhoto Library" file on your machine.

I was referencing "photos" more in the way of saying "You can see them on the other machine and browse them". Once you start involving an app like iPhoto, you become totally dependent on what that app will allow you to do. iTunes is flexible about that; iPhoto appears not to be.

[tmart161]

I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I turned on file sharing on both systems I went into my wrt54g 548 to 548 ip of my iMac I go to connect to server I get error code -36 I don't know what I missed any help would be awesome. Do you think Qwest service will block me from getting in. I don't know. Thanks ahead of time.

[ibosie]

Have a look at Simplify Media as well - I use it to listen to my iTunes at home when I'm out and about, it even works on the iPhone over 3g.

http://www.simplifymedia.com/

I agree about BTMM, even with NAT-PMP routers such as an Apple base station it regularly fails to work. MobileMe is nothing like it's cracked up to be.

[slim31]

I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I turned on file sharing on both systems I went into my wrt54g 548 to 548 ip of my iMac I go to connect to server I get error code -36 I don't know what I missed any help would be awesome. Do you think Qwest service will block me from getting in. I don't know. Thanks ahead of time.

I would recommend setting your 'home' machines ip to be static to start.
system preferences > Network: then manual ip to something like 192.168.1.20

Then in your web browser of choice log into the wrt54g's settings and go to, I think its 'gaming and applications' and set up the port forwarding for 548 - 548 to 192.168.1.20 using 'both'. Make sure to click 'save'

While you are in the Linksys settings set up the DHCP range to be like 100 - 245. This will prevent any clients from getting the address of a staticly set item on your network ever.

I am pretty sure that if you have set your 'home' machine to sleep at a given interval and you are away you can not access it remotly. There is the 'wake for administrator access' check box, just not sure if it will work remotly calling for an AFP connection. Does work for SSH.

When not connected to your home network.
cmd + K then type afp://shortname: passw0rd@externalip (ignore the space in : p)
example: afp://who:you@68.63.248.90

This makes the modem located at 68.63.248.90 point port 548 traffic to 192.168.1.20 thus resulting in the mount window so you can select the drives that the user has permissions on.

*the shortname must be the one on the machine you are trying to connect to.

I use this set up all the time for remotly connecting to my iTunes library when I am away. I simply mount the remote volume, hold down the 'option' key and start iTunes. In the new window I select 'choose library' then navigate the the directory and pick the iTunes.library file. Suddenly I have iTunes just like I do at home. If new podcasts are available they just start to download and are saved to my machine at home or if I rip a new cd the same thing happens.

I few things to note about this setup is that my iTunes library is nothing more than a directory on an always on machine. That is not in use on that machine, since a library file can not be inuse by more than one client at a time. I also have my preferences set up in iTunes to 'not keep my stuff organized' and to 'not copy items to my library' for each machine that I have that I intend to mount this library file. My primary desktop at home also uses this very same library file so I must keep aware of that. However, this does allow me to sync my iPhone with new stuff when away easily.

[whill]

When I try to publicly share my IP address I get an error:

"The value for 'DHCP Ending Address' is invalid."

I have tried a wide range of option [the obvious would seem to be 255], but none of them are accepted. Any ideas?

[whill]

And, just in case you were wondering, I have no other routers on my local network.

[dlblarg]

Originally Posted by bluetooth101

Hi, I just need someone to guide me along the process and I didn't know anything port forwarding or any other network terms. So sorry

Appreciate the effort and I took a simpler approach.

Connect iPhone to Air with the Shiny Things Hack. I play music through iTunes via the iPhone, and manually manage it as needed. Like a jukebox.

With the travel I do, no way you can guarantee access to ports: what's blocked, what's not. I just use idisk and it works exceptionally well. I also travel with a lacie rugged.

[mrrippey]

i can verify if you have a AEBS and a mac you can get to your shared hard drive on the AEBS. I have cable and get a static IP from the ISP, I opened the port and had it forwarded to the AEBS IP address (which has the USB drive on it). Connect to server from my mac prompts me username/password and I am attached.

It is very str8 forward. Your external IP address should be on the main screen of your AEBS or Time Capsule screen. Your internal address is listed there as well (10.something, 192.something, whatever your internal network config is).

Takes about 15 minutes maybe. If it is taking longer, there is something wrong in your setup but if you are already up and running, it is not a bad and fairly quick.

One note, only Mac's can connect, not Windows (I tried with Windows XP and Windows7, no dice). MacDrive7 does not install on Windows7.

[zzzork]

Originally Posted by clayj

What kind of router do you have? If it's an AirPort Extreme Base Station, please scroll up farther in this thread to see a picture of what the port configuration screen looks like. If it's some other kind of router, the important things to remember are:

1. You MUST know what the internal IP address is of your Mac server. You can get this by going to that Mac and clicking System Preferences > Network... it should be right there under Status. This IP address is what you should specify in your router: External port "5678" (or whatever you choose) should be mapped to port "548" (this is ALWAYS 548) of IP address "ip.ip.ip.ip".

2. You MUST also have turned on File Sharing on your Mac server. This is under System Preferences > Sharing. You will see something like "Other users can access your computer at afp://ip.ip.ip.ip or browse for "MacServerName", where "ip.ip.ip.ip" is the same IP address from step 1.

Let me know if this helps. Remember also that if you can connect your MBA to a neighbor's WiFi network, this will allow you to more easily test the changes that you make to see if they work.

Hey Clayj - Thanks for a great post! I am however stuck, can't get it to work. Everytime I go to "Connect to Server" it pops up w/ CONNECTION FAILED. The server may not exist or it is not operational at this time. Just like others have stated in previous post. I am using an AEBS with a WD harddrive. All I want to do is remote access the harddrive, like a server. In the directions above am I correct in assuming thats if your looking to access a turned on home computer?? Cause I followed those directions and was able to access my home computer but not the usb attached harddrive.... I've doubled/tripled tried your direction but I'm just missing something. Please help! Thanks in advance for yours or anyone else's help!!

[rastersize]

Originally Posted by clayj

Away from Your Home Network (Even More Secure) -- Added 3/3/2008

I didn't post this info earlier, because I wasn't sure it would work... but this weekend I was able to confirm that it does. There are two differences between this method and the Secure method shown above:

1. On your router, configure a port number that you choose (for example, 5678 -- I recommend using a high port number to prevent conflicts) to forward to port 548 of the internal IP address of your Mac server (a Mac Pro, iMac, Mac mini, or some other Mac that's always home and on) for both TCP and UDP. For example, your Mac server might have an IP address like 192.168.1.1.

5. In the Server Address box, type your home system's external IP address, plus a colon and the port number you specified in step 1. For example, "123.123.12.123:5678". Or, if you have a domain name that points to your home system, you can type that, plus a colon and the port number you specified in step 1: "www.myhomedomain.com:5678", for example.

Setting your router to perform port forwarding in this manner, rather than just relying on the home server's login security, provides an additional layer of security that will prevent unauthorized users from accessing your home server: Not only would they have to know your user name and password from your home server, but they would also have to know what port number to use, not just the default 548 port number. If they can't even guess the right port number, they don't even get a chance to try your user name and password.

This would only add perceived security and not any real security. One could call it security through obscurity. The main problem in this application would be that it will not provide any extra layer of security. Why you may ask. You may say, the attacker will attempt to connect to my IP address using an AFP client which will not work.

Well, think about it. If someone wishes to gain access to your specific AFP share how would they do it? First of all, the attacker somehow know you have a AFP share available on a specific address. They might have spotted it at your work/campus or know this in some other way. Yes I'm aware that no one would "ever" want to access your stuff. Why would they, you don't have any top secrete planet destroying weapon blueprints on your share.
But why did you then change the port number at all?

Well first the attacker would probably try to just connect to you.

afp-client connect afp.example.com

This would fail if you use a different port number than the default 548. Say that you use the port number of 5480 and you have opened this in your router. Will the attacker give up here and say, "hey that guy got some mad security, best I give up now before he starts hunting me!"

I doubt that, I think all he will do is to fire up his good old trustworthy port scanner and find out that you only have one open port. Then he'll try to connect to you with:

afp-client connect afp.example.com:5480

And voila, he will get the same fancy login window you get.

What I want to point out is that changing the port will not add any real security to your setup.


And if someone doesn't explicitly know that you host a AFP share and just want to see if they can attack your system in some way. They could just do a port scan first and then connect to you on any of your open ports and find out what's running on it.


Edit:
Furthermore, doing special port setup will actually give you more headache than using the default port. Unless you change the port number the AFP service is running on. Since that wouldn't increase security either but only increase the complexity of using the system it's a bad idea. What you should is run the service on the default port, use the default port in your router and have less headaches.
Why would you get more headaches from using one port number on the outside of your network and one on the inside? Well you would have to have two different string with which you connect. And if you one day would want to automate the connection to your server, it is much easier if you can do that with the same address and port number.

[ohkuipo]

Originally Posted by mrrippey

One note, only Mac's can connect, not Windows (I tried with Windows XP and Windows7, no dice). MacDrive7 does not install on Windows7.

I am bumping this thread to confirm this, or hear anyone else's experiences on the matter. Is this true? To connect to a AirDisk over the internet just requires the IP and the port... Why wouldn't a Windows machine be able to do this? (And if the issue is MacFUSE drivers, what would go wrong with a Windows machine with MacDrive installed?)

[4i2fly]

I have used this instruction to be able to share my usb drive over the internet and works perfectly. I have also mapped the dynamic IP provided by my isp to a dynamic ip updater that works fine for the most part. Every so often when the ip address changes the connection to my share drive fails. I have no idea why? I signed up with No-IP.com and I can verify that the ip address being updated into the alias is correct but for some reason it does not connect or I get the connection failed message. Any idea what is happening and why it does not like some of the IPs provided by my ISP? Appreciate a pointer.
Cheers,
Matt

[alphaod]

Originally Posted by 4i2fly

I have used this instruction to be able to share my usb drive over the internet and works perfectly. I have also mapped the dynamic IP provided by my isp to a dynamic ip updater that works fine for the most part. Every so often when the ip address changes the connection to my share drive fails. I have no idea why? I signed up with No-IP.com and I can verify that the ip address being updated into the alias is correct but for some reason it does not connect or I get the connection failed message. Any idea what is happening and why it does not like some of the IPs provided by my ISP? Appreciate a pointer.
Cheers,
Matt

When you connect to your network, you are using the syntax 'domain.nameort#' right? (ie: alphaod.com:7001) Also how does your IP get updated and is the update often enough?

[rhythm12345]

For a newbie like me, the posts you write are extremely useful. Now i can easily use remote file access.

[Halcylon]

This is great. Is there a way to test this while I'm at home?

*Sounds like a dumb question, but I'm really trying to figure out how to do that.

[musicpenguy]

A little late but the easiest way to test this would be to use 3G data on your MBA via tethering your iPhone (JB) or iPad - or even get an app on your iOS device to test it over 3G

[badgerman]

Plan to this with MBA and aebs. Is it slow over wireless n? Does it negate the ssd speeds everyone has been highlighting for movies, music n photos..

[HardLuckStories]

K, I played with DNLA streaming on an old macbook, ps3 and AEBS- always encountered stuttering playback, unsupported files, missing files, slow, degradation of wireless network performance and complicated network setup. I'm not a quitter but realised streaming wasn't gonna happen, even putting it down to the AEBS poor capabilities as router.

Anyhow after months of pondering whether to buy a readyNAS I finally bit the bullet with the reasoning such a purchase is going to save me from headaches in the years to come (all content backed up all the time automatically) Long story short, plugged it into AEBS via cat5, and its beastly. The most basic of basic setup, shows up as drive straight away in Finder, no random disconnects bs. Truly awesome bit of kit. And to make things better, the streaming via wireless AEBS is incredible. Have 90gb of itunes content and it streams FLAWLESSLY, its like its on the drive inside the macbook air. 1080p streams to ps3, again over wifi, sometimes I'm streaming itunes music, playing MW2 online, my dads connected browsing with his ipad and theres no apparent degradation in network performance.

Highly highly recommended network storage solution.

Product plug over lol

[linkandzelda]

Damn... i wish i could use this, but my router does not support NAT-PMP. Any way to get round that? I would so use it otherwise.

[Dias]

Thank you for this guide!

[BeyondtheTech]

I'm going to chime in on this one. Instead of having to deal with port forwarding and such, I would recommend a program like Yazsoft's ShareTool or the newer and seemingly more robust and less expensive Slink.

Both programs will allow you to connect back to your home network and access resources nearly as easily as if you were home, from shared printers to iPhoto and iTunes libraries, ARD into other machines, and a lot more.

I'm on trial for both of them, but it looks like I'll be making the purchase for Slink, since you only need to purchase one license for the machine you'll be remoting from. In this case, it's my MacBook Air. ShareTool seems to want a license for each machine.

www.slinkware.com
www.yazsoft.com

(not affiliated with either product or company)

[jumpmanjay23]

Originally Posted by HardLuckStories

K, I played with DNLA streaming on an old macbook, ps3 and AEBS- always encountered stuttering playback, unsupported files, missing files, slow, degradation of wireless network performance and complicated network setup. I'm not a quitter but realised streaming wasn't gonna happen, even putting it down to the AEBS poor capabilities as router.

Anyhow after months of pondering whether to buy a readyNAS I finally bit the bullet with the reasoning such a purchase is going to save me from headaches in the years to come (all content backed up all the time automatically) Long story short, plugged it into AEBS via cat5, and its beastly. The most basic of basic setup, shows up as drive straight away in Finder, no random disconnects bs. Truly awesome bit of kit. And to make things better, the streaming via wireless AEBS is incredible. Have 90gb of itunes content and it streams FLAWLESSLY, its like its on the drive inside the macbook air. 1080p streams to ps3, again over wifi, sometimes I'm streaming itunes music, playing MW2 online, my dads connected browsing with his ipad and theres no apparent degradation in network performance.

Highly highly recommended network storage solution.

Product plug over lol

Thanks for the insight on NAS drives. When you were talking about the performance of the NAS drive, was it when your computer was connected on the same network as the NAS drive? I'm wondering how the performance of the drive is when you are not connected on the same network as your NAS (say...you're on vacation in Brazil and your NAS is at home in the UK). Thanks.

[omniatlas]

Originally Posted by ibosie

Have a look at Simplify Media as well - I use it to listen to my iTunes at home when I'm out and about, it even works on the iPhone over 3g.

http://www.simplifymedia.com/

I agree about BTMM, even with NAT-PMP routers such as an Apple base station it regularly fails to work. MobileMe is nothing like it's cracked up to be.

Google just bought Simplifymedia!! Looks like we can't use it...for now. Hopefully they will improve on it, and release it for free.

[White Apple]

The home based server must be MAC OS? can it be Windows PC?
Another question is that can i use the wireless network external hard drive to share files between MBA and windows based PC at home? how fast/slow is the transfer speed would be?