Network connection to home NAS (from home and away)

[racketeer71]

Okay, the situation is that my takes up 60GB of space on my MBA. I have invested in a Synology NAS. What I would like to do is move my iTunes library to the NAS, and then have my iTunes.app use the library from there.

No, I don't want to use the included "iTunes Server" on the NAS.*

So, I can go to iTunes->Preferences->Advanced and specify a folder on the NAS. That works great when I'm on the same network.

But when I go to the university, this obviously breaks. So, my questions is:

1) I presume I have to open the AFP ports in my router? No problem.

2) But how do I make sure, that it works seamlessly whenever I switch location. Problem is, if I set it up on my local LAN and then take the computer to uni, it obviously doesn't work because iTunes then cannot find the NAS at 10.0.0.51. How do I tell OS X, that when I'm at home the NAS should be mounted with 10.0.0.51 as IP, but when I'm not at home OS X must use my "public IP" on the outside router interface? I want this to be as seamless and smooth as possible, so I don't have to do a lot every time I switch location.

Does my question make sense?

* Reason I don't want to use iTunes Server: If my two questions are answered, I will not only have access to my iTunes files, but to all the files on my NAS.

Best regards,

 

[Panch0]

I don't think you can make it seamless unless you run a DNS server on your local network. That's probably more trouble that it's worth.

AFAIK, iTunes only looks at the Mount name (/volumes/iTunes for example). It doesn't know where the volume is mounted from.

So, when Away from your LAN, if you go to Finder, then Go-> Connect to Server, and connect to your external Address, the volume *should* get the right name. That address will most likely NOT work from within your LAN, where you would want to Connect to Server using the local address instead.

In Both Locations, you would need to make sure that you have mounted the volume before opening iTunes. I'm sure you could create an Automator Script to try the local address then try the WAN address if the local isn't found. Never tried that, but seems like it should be doable.

I finally got my iMac set up to use my Synology NAS for my Media Library a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't tried getting iTunes working on my Laptop yet, so that was all theory. I did just Mount my iTunes Share remotely and verified that the volume looks just like it does on my LAN.

 

[josgraha]

you can perhaps try Amazon's Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) service
http://aws.amazon.com/vpc/

it costs money but saves configuration headache. otherwise you could look into setting up a simple vpn solution, maybe something you can do on the cheap with a custom router firmware or something.

 

[bmcgonag]

you can perhaps try Amazon's Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) service
http://aws.amazon.com/vpc/

it costs money but saves configuration headache. otherwise you could look into setting up a simple vpn solution, maybe something you can do on the cheap with a custom router firmware or something.

I don't know if you NAS supports Hamachi, but if it does, then that's an easy VPN solution...if your NAS supports any kind of VPN however, it would be a great way to go. Setup your VPN on the MBA and connect to it from any internet connection to have the same access to your iTunes library.