Accessing Tivoweb remotely - confused

[Ben Lovejoy]

I'm trying to access my Tivo remotely while travelling. The main idea is to be able to use TyEditor to pick up programmes to watch on my laptop, but as stage 1 I'm just trying to be able to access TivoWeb.

On my local network, Tivo is at 192.168.1.200. On my router, I have set this as the default DMZ. I'm told that Tivo uses port 3565, so I have set a port forward from this to 192.168.1.200.

Getting a friend to access remotely, I have given him my cable modem IP address (which, while theoretically dynamic, in fact hasn't changed in the past several years), which he has entered into his web browser. So let's pretend my IP address is 1.2.3.4, he has tried entering the following variations into his browser address bar:

1.2.3.4
http://1.2.3.4
http://1.2.3.4:3565

None of which works. Can anyone tell me what I'm missing/doing wrong?

Ben

[cheer]

Tivoweb ought to be port 80 by default, not 3565. Set up port forwarding (NOT DMZ) to forward port 80 to your Tivo's IP and try again.

[Ben Lovejoy]

Ah, that's me not really understanding ports - I think I was in fact being told that TyEditor should access that port. However, with port 80 forwarded as well, it still doesn't work. Looks like I am still missing a step. (I used http://www.whatismyipaddress.com to tell me my IP address.)

[cheer]

Hmm. Could be that your Tivo doesn't have a proper DNS setup, or gateway. If you telnet into your Tivo, can you ping www.yahoo.com? What about 204.71.200.68?

[rbautch]

Another simple and secure way to access your tivo remotely is to use a remote login service to access your home PC, and then get to the tivo from there. I tried them all, and I prefer the www.logmein.com, which has a free version.

[Ben Lovejoy]

Another simple and secure way to access your tivo remotely is to use a remote login service to access your home PC
Thanks for the thought, but my home PC is a laptop that is with me when travelling, hence there is no PC at home.

[Ben Lovejoy]

Hmm. Could be that your Tivo doesn't have a proper DNS setup, or gateway. If you telnet into your Tivo, can you ping www.yahoo.com? What about 204.71.200.68?
Ok, this looks like we're heading along the right track: the URL is unresolvable and the IP address unreachable. So it sounds like there is some setup needed on the Tivo ... bearing in mind that I know nothing at all about Unix (and telneting into my Tivo last night to get the MAC address was the first time I have ever seen a bash prompt), can you tell me what I need to do at that end?

[cheer]

Yes, but first I need to know: what model Tivo, and what version of the Tivo software is it running?

[Ben Lovejoy]

Thanks! It's a Thompson Scenium, originally 39 hours.

Software System: 2.5.5-01-1-023
Kernel Information
Version 2.1.24-TiVo-2.5
Compile #14 Wed Oct 8 12:06:25 MDT 2003

Is connected to my network via a wifi bridge. Anything else you need to know, just ask.

Ben

[bushman4]

Is your TiVo getting its address via DHCP or is it statically configured?

If it is static, try the following at a bash prompt to check your IP info:
ifconfig

and to check your Default Gateway:
route

...and look for the route that has a destination of "Default"

Report back what that looks like.

But as a general rule, take the TiVo out of the DMZ, and just forward port 80 to the TiVo's IP address to get TiVo Web to work. Additional ports can be worked out later, but do one thing at a time.

Bushman

[Ben Lovejoy]

ifconfig: IP is 192.168.1.200 as expected (this was configured by TivoHeaven when the upgraded drive was supplied, so I think is fixed). Bxast 192.168.1.255. Mask 255.255.255.0. UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU 1500 Metric 1. No errors, drops or overruns. Interrupt 29.

route: No response at all, just a blank line then returns to the bash prompt.

[DougF]

Do you know for certain that your ISP is not blocking port 80? Also, is it possible that you are sharing an IP address via NAT? When I first got DSL, the public IP address I had was being shared by many other users. I wasn't able to use TivoWeb or extract remotely until I upgraded my service to have a static IP.

[cheer]

It's not a port forwarding issue -- he doesn't have a default gateway or route, so it doesn't know where to go for anything not on the local network.

Try this:
route add default gw x.x.x.x
Replace "x.x.x.x" with the local IP address of your router. See if that makes a difference. But I'm a bit concerned that you don't even see the local route in your routing table...

[cheer]

When I first got DSL, the public IP address I had was being shared by many other users. I wasn't able to use TivoWeb or extract remotely until I upgraded my service to have a static IP.
That can't possibly work. You may have had a dynamic IP that changed from time to time, but at any given moment your public IP address has to be unique.

For those with dynamic ip addresses, a dynamic dns service is very useful.

[Ben Lovejoy]

I don't know that for certain, no; I'm with blueyonder, on a cable modem link. I will ask them via their support form and see if I can get an answer, but I'm not holding my breath on that one ...

I'm 99% sure IP addresses are not shared.

Ben

[cheer]

I'm 99% sure IP addresses are not shared.
I'm 100% sure. By their nature they cannot be -- or at least, not at the same time. :)

[Ben Lovejoy]

Try this:
route add default gw x.x.x.x
Replace "x.x.x.x" with the local IP address of your router. See if that makes a difference. But I'm a bit concerned that you don't even see the local route in your routing table...
Ok, did:
route 192.168.1.1
Got a blank line then the bash prompt.

Did:
route
and got the same thing (as before).

Then noticed that Tivo telnet login says:
File system on / is now READONLY - type 'rw' to make READ/WRITE, so did:
rw
route 192.168.1.1
route
ro
and got blank lines and bash prompts again to both route commands (the only commands acknowledged were the rw and ro ones).

[DougF]

That can't possibly work. You may have had a dynamic IP that changed from time to time, but at any given moment your public IP address has to be unique.

For those with dynamic ip addresses, a dynamic dns service is very useful.


You are obviously unaware of how NAT works.

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/556/nat-cisco.shtml

http://www.dslreports.com/information/kb/sharing/NAT

I can assure you that it does, in fact, work.

[cheer]

No, believe me, I am EXACTLY aware of how NAT works. (And to be technical, you're really referring to PAT, I expect -- NAT without PAT is still a one-for-one substitution.) However, I would not think it was common for ISPs to assign public IP addresses to its users AND THEN NAT them behind another public IP.

But. If NAT is being used, then the IP in question is NOT the true public IP. It's the IP facing outwards that's required. Though if the ISP is using NAT, then inbound requests (to a web server or anything else) won't work no matter what you do.

Personally I wouldn't stay with an ISP that was NATting, but that's me.

[cheer]

Ok, did:
route 192.168.1.1
Got a blank line then the bash prompt.
Did you try "route add default gw 192.168.1.1" instead?

[bushman4]

Ben,

You are misunderstanding... the correct command would be:
route add default gw 192.168.1.1

Bushman

[Ben Lovejoy]

Oops, my mistake typing it here - I did in fact try the correct command (and have tried it again just now, after again doing the rw bit first, and still the same result).

My cable modem does report a different IP address to the external-facing one. The internal one begins with a 10, but I used http://www.whatismyipaddress.com to get the external-facing one.

[cheer]

Strange. It almost seems like the route command isn't working on your box (ro or rw should not matter). I would at least expect to see the local subnet.

Try "route -n" and hit enter. Anything different? Next, try "which route" and hit enter, and tell us what you get.

[Ben Lovejoy]

route -n produces a help file, so the command is there.

which route tells me command 'which' is not recognised

[cheer]

OK. Strange that -n would give you a help file. Can you post that help file here? Evidently your route command is different from mine. :)

[Ben Lovejoy]

I'm just telnetting in using a DOS window, and I don't think there's any way to paste from that? And now route -n is doing the blank line and return to bash prompt thing ...

Why does networking always seem to require one to sacrifice a goat and pray to the right gods?

[cheer]

Depends on your telnet client, but most should let you copy/paste. Even the built-in Windows one will, though it's not intuitive -- click on the upper-left-hand corner of the telnet window, click Edit, click Mark. Use the mouse to highlight what you want. Click on the upper-left-hand corner again, click Edit, click Copy. Now you can paste it into notepad or whatever.

Try "route -h" or "route --help" and see if either get you the help file again. Also, for laughs, try "/sbin/route -n" and see if that looks any different.

[ocntscha]

OK. Strange that -n would give you a help file. Can you post that help file here? Evidently your route command is different from mine. :)
I think I've got his route command and I think you might too. I can also replicate "which route tells me command 'which' is not recognised"..

C:\Documents and Settings\schaefert>route -n

Manipulates network routing tables.

ROUTE [-f] [-p] [command [destination]
[MASK netmask] [gateway] [METRIC metric] [IF interface]

-f Clears the routing tables of all gateway entries. If this is
used in conjunction with one of the commands, the tables are
cleared prior to running the command.
-p When used with the ADD command, makes a route persistent across
boots of the system. By default, routes are not preserved
when the system is restarted. Ignored for all other commands,
which always affect the appropriate persistent routes. This
option is not supported in Windows 95.
command One of these:
PRINT Prints a route
ADD Adds a route
DELETE Deletes a route
CHANGE Modifies an existing route
destination Specifies the host.
MASK Specifies that the next parameter is the 'netmask' value.
netmask Specifies a subnet mask value for this route entry.
If not specified, it defaults to 255.255.255.255.
gateway Specifies gateway.
interface the interface number for the specified route.
METRIC specifies the metric, ie. cost for the destination.

All symbolic names used for destination are looked up in the network database
file NETWORKS. The symbolic names for gateway are looked up in the host name
database file HOSTS.

If the command is PRINT or DELETE. Destination or gateway can be a wildcard,
(wildcard is specified as a star '*'), or the gateway argument may be omitted.

If Dest contains a * or ?, it is treated as a shell pattern, and only
matching destination routes are printed. The '*' matches any string,
and '?' matches any one char. Examples: 157.*.1, 157.*, 127.*, *224*.
Diagnostic Notes:
Invalid MASK generates an error, that is when (DEST & MASK) != DEST.
Example> route ADD 157.0.0.0 MASK 155.0.0.0 157.55.80.1 IF 1
The route addition failed: The specified mask parameter is invalid.
(Destination & Mask) != Destination.

Examples:

> route PRINT
> route ADD 157.0.0.0 MASK 255.0.0.0 157.55.80.1 METRIC 3 IF 2
destination^ ^mask ^gateway metric^ ^
Interface^
If IF is not given, it tries to find the best interface for a given
gateway.
> route PRINT
> route PRINT 157* .... Only prints those matching 157*
> route CHANGE 157.0.0.0 MASK 255.0.0.0 157.55.80.5 METRIC 2 IF 2

CHANGE is used to modify gateway and/or metric only.
> route PRINT
> route DELETE 157.0.0.0
> route PRINT

C:\Documents and Settings\schaefert>which route
'which' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

C:\Documents and Settings\schaefert>

[cheer]

Um, that's not on the Tivo...that's on your PC! :) But then you know that, of course. Ben specifically mentions the bash prompt, so I'm hoping this isn't what's going on.

[glimmerung]

Ben,

have you got anywhere with this as my problems seem very similar to yours?

[GlennL]

I won't pretend to know about NAT and PAT but I will refer you to a site that can be helpful when trying to get your TiVo online. Here is the URL: http://tivo.stevejenkins.com/network_cd.html. I have my TiVo online via Tivowebplus and have no problem accessing the Tivo over the internet. I also can view my recordings using Tivotool. I'm using a Mac but the site referenced above is designed with PCs in mind.

I use port 8080 for my TiVo. If you are using a router with built in port mapping you will need to make sure you allow access to the port you use through the router's port mapping. Since you are on a PC I can't tell you how to do this so I suggest you do a search on the forums here to find how to set your router to allow you to get through your router.