den4b Forum

jon7817

Member

Registered: 2009-01-28

Posts: 3

Web interface and external access

Let me start by saying I don't really know what I am doing.

I am running a program called Orb on my computer and my iphone.  It enables me to access video and music files that are on my computer through my phone over the internet.  The program also allows me to access my cablebox and watch live tv on my phone.  It's very cool.

The problem is sometimes the program locks up and I need to restart my computer.  The program has a restart button but it doesn't always get the program to restart.  I wanted to be able to restart my computer when I am out of the home when the program locks up.  That is why I am using Shutter.

I can't figure out how to get the web interface to work when I am outside my home and not in my local network.  It should be pretty simple.

I am running Vista, Zone Alarm free version and I have a Dlink DI-524 router.  I figure these are the things I need to set.

I think I recently setup a static ip address to get a bittorrent application working.  I tried to forward port 80 on the router and I think it worked but I don't know if it did or if I even need to do this or why I need to do this.  When I try to plug in the static ip address (or what I think is the static ip address) in Shutter I get "Socket Error #10049 Cannot assign requested address".

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

I got the web interface to work from my iphone when I am on my local network.

airjrdn

Member

Registered: 2007-07-14

Posts: 22

Re: Web interface and external access

I've never used Shutter, but assuming it monitors port 80, here's what you need to do.

You said you've already given your PC a static address, so that's done.  Let's assume it's 192.168.1.50
You said you can get to it when you are on your local network, so we know it works
You do want to go into the DLink and forward port 80 (both external and internal) TCP to your LAN IP (192.168.1.50)

From outside your house, you're going to need to know what your internet IP is.  This will NOT be 192.168.x x.  To get that, I would suggest signing up for a free service such as dyndns.org or no-ip.com that allows you to run a little application on your PC and will make something like jon7817.no-ip.com point to your internet IP.  These services are free.

Once that is setup, from outside your network, you should be able to browse to http://jon7817.no-ip.com and pull up the Shutter Web Interface.  If not, I'd suggest disabling Zone Alarm temporarily to see if that's blocking the incoming connection.

Overall, here's the gist of it....

Using Orb, you don't have to know the "external" or "internet" IP address of your home internet connection.  To do this, you will.

With a service like no-ip.com, there's a program running on your PC, and it periodically tells no-ip.com jon7817's current IP address is "x".  So jon7817.no-ip.com points to your home internet connection (your modem).

A request to jon7817.no-ip.com goes to your house and gets to your router.  The rule in your router tells it when you see something coming in on port 80, send it to port 80 on the device with the IP address of 192.168.1.50.

From there, your PC gets the request on port 80, and it should then send the webpage back to your phone where you can restart whatever you'd like.

I would suggest working on fixing the problem, but the above should accomplish what you are after.

jon7817

Member

Registered: 2009-01-28

Posts: 3

Re: Web interface and external access

thanks for the great info and quick reply.   I'll try it as soon as I can and let you know what happens.

jon7817

Member

Registered: 2009-01-28

Posts: 3

Re: Web interface and external access

I played around with the info you gave me and everything seems to be working.  I'm not sure I need to setup the no-ip.com address.  I think my problem was I was not pointing my browser to the port I forwarded.  Instead if using "my static ip:port #" I was just using "my static ip".  Either way, I learned a lot and found some good info that I can apply to some other stuff I am working on.

Thanks so much for the help and pointers.

airjrdn

Member

Registered: 2007-07-14

Posts: 22

Re: Web interface and external access

Glad you got it working.  Feel free to post back if you have troubles, I'll stay subscribed to this thread.