Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Accessing the Time Capsule while travelling with your MBA

Hit a Hitch

The steps I had written before will need to be updated slightly if you have the 7.3.1 firmware on your Time Capsule or AEBS+USBHD... specifically, it appears that Apple have tightened the security up a bit in the new firmware release, so you may have to set up port mapping to map a port number to the 548 port of the TC/AEBS+USBHD. If I drop back to the 7.2.1 firmware, I am able to connect using no port mapping and just going to afp://www.myhomedomain.com or afp://123.123.12.123.

I've confirmed this is correct... the new firmware requires you to use port mapping to connect to the TC/AEBS+USBHD over the Internet. I will update the steps in the Guide appropriately.
 
Time Capsule IP

Hi there!

After reading through your instructions, I still don't know how to figure out the internal IP address for my time capsule so I can enable port mapping.

Also after I set up an account with dyndns.org obviously I cannot install their software on the time capsule to tell them what IP address to link to that domain I set up with them. So if I just have one computer, how can I make sure that the domain address I set up with them is constantly linked to the correct IP address so I can actually establish a connection to my time capsule from anywhere?

Or is afterall the only way to remotely connect to my time capsule without having a second computer running at home to get a static IP from my ISP...but then I still need to know the internal IP address for the time capsule if you are saying that the new software requires port mapping.

Thanks so much.
 
TaishasMan said:
Hi there!

After reading through your instructions, I still don't know how to figure out the internal IP address for my time capsule so I can enable port mapping.

Also after I set up an account with dyndns.org obviously I cannot install their software on the time capsule to tell them what IP address to link to that domain I set up with them. So if I just have one computer, how can I make sure that the domain address I set up with them is constantly linked to the correct IP address so I can actually establish a connection to my time capsule from anywhere?

Or is afterall the only way to remotely connect to my time capsule without having a second computer running at home to get a static IP from my ISP...but then I still need to know the internal IP address for the time capsule if you are saying that the new software requires port mapping.

Thanks so much.
Click to expand...
Getting the internal IP of your Time Capsule is easy:

1. Launch the Airport Utility.
2. In the list of stations on the left, select your Time Capsule. (If you have only one base station, this should already be selected.)
3. On the right, you will see the IP Address.

This is the IP address you need to specify in the Port Mapping: External port number "xxxx" (a number you choose) maps to internal IP address "ip.ip.ip.ip" and internal port number 548 (this is ALWAYS 548).

Don't forget that you also need to enable File Sharing under Disks > File Sharing in AirPort Utility.

As far as using a dynamic DNS client goes when you don't have a machine that will be at home all the time, that's a bit trickier. You can't install the dynamic DNS client on your MBA, because then when you log in from somewhere else, your home domain name will change to point to wherever in the world it is you are right now. If you are lucky like I am, your home external IP address will not change very often... I had the same IP address for over TWO YEARS at one point, only changing when I had to reset my cable modem.
 
Time Capsule with Back to my Mac.

Just found something amazing in an Apple Forum. If this should work it would be the very ultimate solution for the issues we are having. It says that one can set up the Time Capsule with Back to my Mac so it automatically shows up in the shared section of the finder. Unfortunately I just can't get this to work. The problems I have is that I don't know what my machine name is - I wonder if I can just pick a random one - and second has my .Mac name a "." in the middle and in the keychain entries for Back to my Mac this seems to be replaced with a "\." ...however, I tried both and it doesn't seem to be working...anyone else tried this and had more success:

Re: Time Capsule
Posted: Mar 12, 2008 7:52 AM in response to: Snoop Dogg
Reply Email

I'd be very curious on how to make this happen. I tried this on my Time Capsule, which has fruited no results so far:

From AppleInsider.com:
"Can the drive be accessed over the internet, e.g. using a MacBook away from home to browse a documents folder on the Time Capsule drive?"

Yes, it supports Wide Area Bonjour, the basis of Back to My Mac. However, Apple hasn't made it obvious how to connect the device to its .Mac servers in order to do this. Savvy users with access to their own DNS-SD server will be able to set this up themselves, but the rest of us will need to wait for Apple to make things more obvious.

Both Leopard and Time Capsule allow users to enter a Hostname, User, and Password for a "dynamic global hostname," which means creating a Wide Area Bonjour name that can be looked up by Back to My Mac from any location. This panel (below top) is brought up by clicking Edit next to the Time Capsule Name (below bottom), or in Leopard, by clicking on Edit next to the Computer Name in System Preferences : Sharing.

There's no clue how to set this up provided by Apple, but it appears that this can be used to register the Time Capsule (or Mac) with .Mac. An anonymous Tim, commenting in the Apple support forums, suggests trying the following, with 'Foo' being your machine name and 'Bar' your .Mac account:

Hostname: Foo.Bar.members.mac.com
User: Foo.Bar.members.mac.com
Password: you get this by finding the Back to Mac entry in the system keyring, and copying the password from that.
I did this, and so far have gotten nothing. Am I on the right track?

Powerbook G4 1.67 GHz 2GB RAM and iMac G5 2.16 GHz 2GB RAM Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Snoop Dogg


Posts: 628
Registered: Oct 15, 2003
Re: Time Capsule
Posted: Mar 12, 2008 10:40 AM in response to: Big Cankles
Reply Email

Hey BigC. Yep this is close, but there's one slight mistake. You have to do this...

Hostname: foo.bar.members.mac.com
User: bar.members.mac.com
Password: You get this by finding the Back to My Mac entry in the System Keychain, and copying the password from that.

Make sure the "foo" part is unique and isn't the same name as any of your other Macs.
 
What is Global Bonjour?

Thanks for the heads up on the new port forwarding with the 7.3 firmware. However, there are still some questions that I have. Currently I have a AEBS with the 7.3 firmware, and a Western Digital 1TB drive plugged into the AEBS.

1. What are the work arounds to apple file protocol (afp) and some network's abilities to block it (i.e. my school and hotel wi-fi's). The issue comes in two accounts. First off, only macs can easily understand afp servers, therefor if I have a friend that needs a file that I have, and they are on a PC, and there's no easy way, often for the illiterate. Secondly, I find that there are many places where I often want to access my home Airport Disk, but it will just not work, such as my university's network.

2. Is a solution to this to use a domain name that directs to my server? For instance, I have my own website, lets call it www.myweb.com. I can create a subdomain in the server, lets call it server.myweb.com. I would like this subdomain to point to my Airport Disk. Lets say my ip address (which hasn't changed in months) is 75.106.32.40, and my port is 5980 which is port mapped as the guide states. I can connect to my server on another persons open network by going to connect to server in Finder, entering afp://75.106.32.40:5980 and the password for my disk.

Now, if I go to my websites contol panel, go to redirection for my subdomain, and enter afp://75.106.32.40:5980 as the address, it will not allow me to connect. So it works in finder if i enter the ip address, but not in firefox or finder if i enter the subdomain name. Does it change the afp protocol to http protocol?

3. What is this Global Bonjour business. What does advertising my disk globally with bonjour accomplish? There used to be more settings for bonjour in your airport utility control panel, such as entering domain names that host it, and such, but they appear to be gone now.
 
beatledud said:
Thanks for the heads up on the new port forwarding with the 7.3 firmware. However, there are still some questions that I have. Currently I have a AEBS with the 7.3 firmware, and a Western Digital 1TB drive plugged into the AEBS.

1. What are the work arounds to apple file protocol (afp) and some network's abilities to block it (i.e. my school and hotel wi-fi's). The issue comes in two accounts. First off, only macs can easily understand afp servers, therefor if I have a friend that needs a file that I have, and they are on a PC, and there's no easy way, often for the illiterate. Secondly, I find that there are many places where I often want to access my home Airport Disk, but it will just not work, such as my university's network.
Click to expand...
If your school or place of business blocks port 548 or the other port number you're trying to use, you're out of luck.

And yes, if your friend has a PC, he's out of luck too, as far as I can tell. PCs don't do AFP, even if they have Bonjour installed.

beatledud said:
2. Is a solution to this to use a domain name that directs to my server? For instance, I have my own website, lets call it www.myweb.com. I can create a subdomain in the server, lets call it server.myweb.com. I would like this subdomain to point to my Airport Disk. Lets say my ip address (which hasn't changed in months) is 75.106.32.40, and my port is 5980 which is port mapped as the guide states. I can connect to my server on another persons open network by going to connect to server in Finder, entering afp://75.106.32.40:5980 and the password for my disk.
Click to expand...
Yes, you can certainly use a domain name that directs to your home network, along with a port number; that's what I do. Without telling you my home domain name (which is set up through DynDNS.org) or port number, when I connect to home using my MBA on the road, the URL looks like "afp://www.myhomedomain.com:5678". This does require that the network I am on with my MBA allow outbound traffic on the port number I specified.

beatledud said:
Now, if I go to my websites contol panel, go to redirection for my subdomain, and enter afp://75.106.32.40:5980 as the address, it will not allow me to connect. So it works in finder if i enter the ip address, but not in firefox or finder if i enter the subdomain name. Does it change the afp protocol to http protocol?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure I would expect this to work. AFP is a protocol, obviously, but that doesn't mean that Safari or Firefox or any other browser is going to know that that's supposed to be redirected to Finder.

VNC (which is what Screen Sharing in Leopard uses) is supported in this manner; for example, I can type "vnc://www.myhomedomain.com:7890" in Safari and it will connect to Screen Sharing for one of my Macs at home (I have "7890" set up to forward to port 5900 on a Mac; 5900 is the VNC port number).

beatledud said:
3. What is this Global Bonjour business. What does advertising my disk globally with bonjour accomplish? There used to be more settings for bonjour in your airport utility control panel, such as entering domain names that host it, and such, but they appear to be gone now.
Click to expand...
I have no idea. I don't mess with Bonjour.
 
clayj said:
the 7.3.1 firmware on your Time Capsule or AEBS+USBHD... specifically, it appears that Apple have tightened the security up a bit in the new firmware release, so you may have to set up port mapping to map a port number to the 548 port of the TC/AEBS+USBHD.
Click to expand...

These are some great insights clayj

Question: What's your feeling on the security of all this? Seems like opening up your TC to "the world" could be a bit risky. Not planning to keep CIA docs on my Mac, but is this sort of thing easily hackable?
 
Le Big Mac said:
These are some great insights clayj

Question: What's your feeling on the security of all this? Seems like opening up your TC to "the world" could be a bit risky. Not planning to keep CIA docs on my Mac, but is this sort of thing easily hackable?
Click to expand...
Thanks!

For anyone to be able to take advantage of your having shared your TC/AEBS+USBHD/Mac server using the steps I have written, they would have to know four things:

1. Your home network's external IP address (e.g., 123.123.12.123) or domain name (e.g., www.myhomedomain.com).

2. The external port number you specified in the port mapping, which maps to internal port 548.

3. Your user name.

4. Your password.

So, while someone might be able to figure out my home network's external IP address or domain name (I make it a point never to tell people, but a clever person might be able to figure it out), the other items are all pretty obscure and not easily guessed. Obviously you would not want for your laptop to fall into the wrong hands; but that's what OS X logon passwords and FileVault are for.

I definitely would not put "classified" (as in, national security stuff) on a system like this, but for normal users, it should be pretty secure.
 
Where did I go wrong?

First of all, thanks to clayj for your guide how to access a TC from abroad.

I managed to access my TC at home from my Mac Pro at the office using a domain (myname).dyndns.org pointing to the dynamical IP address. But now I'm on the road with my MBP, which I originally used to set things up at home, only to find out that the Dynamic DNS client installed on the MBP now maps (mydomain).dyndns.org to the IP address of the MBP here under my hands, not to the one of the TC at home :_(. .....

What went wrong with my setup? Any ideas are greatly appreciated

ruedi
 
Problem with beginning and end port range

Hi, I have followed the instructions in the guide for accessing my time capsule remotely but when I did I got some errors that prevented it working.

Basicially, when I pressed update it said that by beginning and ending port range needed changing.

e.g. 192.168.1.2 (beginning) and 192.168.1.200 (end)

I played about with these a bit but didn't really know what I was doing and couldn't get it to work.

Any suggestions?
 
samradford said:
Hi, I have followed the instructions in the guide for accessing my time capsule remotely but when I did I got some errors that prevented it working.

Basicially, when I pressed update it said that by beginning and ending port range needed changing.

e.g. 192.168.1.2 (beginning) and 192.168.1.200 (end)

I played about with these a bit but didn't really know what I was doing and couldn't get it to work.

Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Just to clarify, the actual error message is: The DHCP range you have entered conflicts with the WAN IP address of your apple wireless device.

Suggestions?
 
Terwal said:
clayj, another great thread you are providing us with here !! :) Thanks a lot for your efforts and the clarity of your explanations...

Not having yet received my TC, I will not be able to try before a few days, but just reading your 2 posts (and even though I am very new to Mac and not at all a tech specialist), this seems all to make sense.

As far as I am concerned, my motivation for accessing the TC over the internet is really to be able to read/write files on the drive; less so to be able to do back ups by using Time Machine.

Therefore, if I understood you correctly, that should work (to be confirmed with an actual TC)... :) Even without a second computer at home... re-:)
.
Click to expand...
This is a bad idea.

If you *can* access the TM drive and you are picking out and placing files to it, you are going to corrupt your Time Machine backup almost certainly.

If all you want to do is remotely access files and *not* access Time Machine backups, then .Mac, any online file service, or just using a networked drive not running TM would be a much better, faster, and more reliable solution.

IMO by trying to do this (fairly ridiculous at this time) thing, you are just setting yourself up for problems down the road for no real gain.
 
DHCP Range question - HELP please...

samradford said:
Just to clarify, the actual error message is: The DHCP range you have entered conflicts with the WAN IP address of your apple wireless device.

Suggestions?
Click to expand...

I have had exactly the same problem as samradford... :confused::confused:

See my post in a different thread (below) which so far as remained unanswered :(

Can anbody help please ? :eek:

samradford: did you manage to fix your issue ? :confused:

Thanks for the help...

w.


- - - -
Problem with DHCP Range ?

I finally got myself to set up my MBA and Time Capsule to be able to connect to it remotely.

I have followed the exact steps of your Guide but get the following error when I try to update my Time Capsule:

"The DHCP range you have entered conflicts with the WAN IP address of your Apple Wireless device".

Any idea what could be wrong ?

Thanks a lot,

Walter
- - - - - -
 
Time Machine transport security

Hello.

If we connect to our home Time Capsule (AEBS + HD) and use Time Machine remotely, will our data be sent through the network in clear?

In other words, does the protocol used (afp?) encrypt the data transmitted?

Thanks,
André
 
EDevil said:
Hello.

If we connect to our home Time Capsule (AEBS + HD) and use Time Machine remotely, will our data be sent through the network in clear?

In other words, does the protocol used (afp?) encrypt the data transmitted?

Thanks,
André
Click to expand...
I really don't know whether Time Machine traffic is encrypted or not.

But I can tell you that trying to use Time Machine across the Internet is definitely not recommended. Although technically it will work, the amount of bandwidth required is simply too high.
 
Sorry to give this a bump, but Im a bit stuck.

Im trying to be able to access my time capsule via the internet while on the road. I setup an account with dyndns, downloaded the software, and followed the port mapping instructions in this thread.

However Im still not able to connect. It says that the server has timed out. I set my port mappings to 548 for private and then xxxx for public. Then for the private ip address, I used the TC ip address(which is also the private ip of 10.0.x.x) or something of that nature. Do I need to input the public ip or a private one? I have a dynamic ip address from my isp, and would rather use dyndns as Im too cheap to pay for a static ip...
 
Found this thread just now, as I wanted to do this too..
Great tip,

FWIW, I am using a TC over the Internet, albeit with a hard, real IP adress.
Full TC functionality as far a s I can see so far...great stuff...

Thanx for the tip, very useful!

best
jtm
 
Hi

I know this topic is prety hold but I have a TimeCapsule here and I would like to access my TC via internet from another Pc (vista or linux).

Firstable, I did a DynDNS with a personal name domaine www.myhomedomain.com. It points on my own dynamic IP adress.

Secondo, I configured my Internet Box with :
DNS server:
dns11.jpg


And my NAT:
nat210.jpg


But nothin hapend. Maybe is it because when I do Go>Connect to Server I'm still at home? I should try on an other place. Or maybe those settings don't work!

When I read this well done doc done by clayj : " http://guides.macrumors.com/Using_Remote_File_Access_to_Save_Disk_Space_on_Your_MacBook_Air ", In the steps 9, 10, 11 and 12 of the part named : "If You Have a Time Capsule or an AirPort Extreme Base Station with Shared USB Hard Drive", I can't find the PortMapping button, neither the plus "+" button, the UDP and TCP Port(s)...
It's what I see :
image_preview.php
[/url][/IMG]
Is the French version less thick or somewhat?
So are those 4 steps (9, 10, 11, 12) already done in my case as my Internet Box is already a NAT server (cf picture n°2).

Thanks

Ho,
I was forgoting, will i access to my TC as a normal ftp server or does the machine who want to connect to my TC has to have a afp system?
Can I connect to my TC via internet with an other OS as OSX?
 
TartufGoodGod said:
Help
Click to expand...
There's definitely something missing from your Airport Utility... the Advanced section should have FOUR subpages, not three. Your Port Mapping subpage is not showing, so you are not going to be able to set this up.

Perhaps in France Apple isn't allowed to implement port mapping in AirPort Extremes or Time Capsules?
 
clayj said:
Well, I may have to retract what I said earlier about Time Machine not working over the Internet. I am pretty sure now that it will, with caveats. Here's what I did to test this:

1. I connected my MBA to my neighbor's open WiFi network, so that my MBA is "away from home".

2. I then connected to my Mac Pro via the Internet, using my home domain name and secret port number. I selected one of my Mac Pro's hard drives to connect to, so it shows up in the Finder under Shared.

3. I went into System Preferences > Time Machine > Choose Backup Disk.

Result: After a few seconds, the remotely-connected hard drive showed up in the list of hard drives!

Based on this, Time Machine can connect to a hard drive over the Internet. It seems like it would probably be able to connect to a Time Capsule as well, as long as you establish the connection between your MBA and your Time Capsule first...

... and here's where that asterisk from above comes into play. You have to create the connection to the Time Capsule/Time Machine before it will work... and even then it's at the mercy of network conditions (speed, dropouts, etc.). Time Machine may do a lot of shuffling of data back and forth, and I would be very concerned about how well the system would perform under those circumstances. All that network traffic as Time Machine writes files up to the Time Machine repository is gonna drain your MBA's battery fairly quickly. (Not to mention, any changes made while disconnected from Time Machine might not be preserved properly.)

So, it looks like you can use Time Machine over the Internet, to either a Time Capsule or a shared hard drive on a server in your home. But do I think it's a good idea? Let me answer you this way:

I'm not gonna do it.

EDIT 3/19/2008: Apple has now enabled using a USB hard drive, connected to an AEBS, as a Time Machine repository with the AEBS 7.3.1 firmware. AEBS + USB HD = Time Capsule, basically. Testing to follow.
Click to expand...

Hi! I used your excellent instructions, however when I enter my home IP address (72.XXX.XXX.XX) at a remote location or my home, it won't connect saying there is no server to connect to. Is it my cable modem that is blocking the connection?

My home internet connection goes like this:

Internet->Cable Modem(Phone, Cable, and Internet through one cable)->Airport Extreme 5th Gen->My Computer

So can anyone tell me why this isn't working? Do I have to go through my cable modem first then the Airport Extreme?
 
CYB3RBYTE said:
Hi! I used your excellent instructions, however when I enter my home IP address (72.XXX.XXX.XX) at a remote location or my home, it won't connect saying there is no server to connect to. Is it my cable modem that is blocking the connection?

My home internet connection goes like this:

Internet->Cable Modem(Phone, Cable, and Internet through one cable)->Airport Extreme 5th Gen->My Computer

So can anyone tell me why this isn't working? Do I have to go through my cable modem first then the Airport Extreme?
Click to expand...
It's very possible that your cable modem has a built-in firewall; you would either need to get it disabled, or find out from your cable provider how to access and change its settings. I would recommend having it disabled -- two firewalls working serially is probably not going to be easy to manage.
 
clayj said:
It's very possible that your cable modem has a built-in firewall; you would either need to get it disabled, or find out from your cable provider how to access and change its settings. I would recommend having it disabled -- two firewalls working serially is probably not going to be easy to manage.
Click to expand...

Okay I will take a look tonight and see if my modem has a firewall and if it does how to modify it to allow outside router access.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back