airport, idisk, hostnames and stuff...

big_moe

ok. my set up....

external usb hard drive. airport extreme (the new one, 802.11n). these are both hooked up together and i can use the external hard drive over wifi no problems. i now want to have that hard drive available over the interweb.. so i can access by using the "connect to server" thing and using "afp://x.x.x.x" etc.. i hear this is possible but i cant seem to figure it out....

i have tried loads of different hostnames etc but cant get the right one to work.

what do i need to give airport utility to get this to work?? and then what do i need to connect to?? eg afp://x.x.x.x

i have ntl broadband, is there something i have to ring them to get??

airport utility is asking me for the following:

wide-area hostname -
Hostname
Domain
Name
Password

then connect to server is asking for:

server address


anybody have this set up and working??

holla back
moe

babypink

have you a static ip address from NTL?

big_moe

not sure. i have whatever they gave me. how much is a static ip address?? if i had one would that sort everything??

cheers
moe

garyo

NTL use Dynamic IP.

big_moe

so does that mean i cant use this feature with ntl?? or can they provide me with a static ip?? is a static ip what i need?? i dont want to go ring ntl and then find out thats not what i need.

cheers
moe

Sad Professor

big_moe wrote:

so does that mean i cant use this feature with ntl?? or can they provide me with a static ip?? is a static ip what i need?? i dont want to go ring ntl and then find out thats not what i need.

No they won't provide a static ip but the feature should still work afaik. I used to be with ntl and in my experience the ip will stay the same until the modem is rebooted or switched off. Most ISPs are the same. However it'll sometimes (rarely) get reset on their end or the modem will re-sync so it's not as reliable as a static ip.

pa

Sad Professor wrote:

No they won't provide a static ip but the feature should still work afaik. I used to be with ntl and in my experience the ip will stay the same until the modem is rebooted or switched off. Most ISPs are the same. However it'll sometimes (rarely) get reset on their end or the modem will re-sync so it's not as reliable as a static ip.

IP Address Menu can notify you by email if your IP address changes.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19508

ZENER

What about using something like Rumpus and use DynDNS.org to provide an automatic update of your i.p.

It means leaving your Mac turned on I know but it works well and provides security too.

ZEN

edit: Sorry, I've just seen the cost of this solution . . a non-runner !

big_moe

even aside from the cost zener, that wouldnt be good for me!

i bring the macbook with me into work and i need to access the hard drive from online.

this way should work faultlessly but its not:(.... i suppose i'll just have to keep messing around with the settings cos i know im VERY close to getting this to work!!

cheers
moe

Sad Professor

Moe, I've no experience with airdisk or what you're trying to do but... I would assume you'd have to set Airport to allow access to the hd via the WAN port. Have you tried this? There may be a setting for it somewhere... As by default it's probably only visible to LAN.

ZENER

Apologies for the dumb reply there, head working ok now . . I think.

Basically you need to access the NTL modem from the internet and go through it to your Airport WAN port right ? Well getting the current ip address of the modem is reasonably easy in a round about way. Most 'modems' at this stage provide a way of updating a host name on dyndns.org which is free. logging on to this account will provide you with the currently assigned ip address of the modem at home so long as you don't update the settings from your current connection.

I don't have the full answer but you're not the only one trying to achieve this, Google shows a lot of others doing likewise with varying degrees of success.

If you were to use dyndns does anyone know if it's possible to type

afp://mydomain.dyndns.org

if so this might be a solution. Would you also need to open port 548 (AFP) in your router ?

ZEN

Sad Professor

I don't think the dynamic ip will be too big a problem, like I said it'll remain the same most of the time. I use DC++ on windows and have to enter my ip into the settings or else no one can download from me. But I rarely ever have to change the ip.

big_moe

Sad Professor wrote:

I would assume you'd have to set Airport to allow access to the hd via the WAN port. Have you tried this? There may be a setting for it somewhere... As by default it's probably only visible to LAN.

i have this enabled alright.

ZENER wrote:

I don't have the full answer but you're not the only one trying to achieve this, Google shows a lot of others doing likewise with varying degrees of success.

yeah i've seen all the google results on this issue. two things seems to happen to people, either it works straight off, or it never does!


i have all the settings correctly entered i reckon. its just the hostname things that have me confused!!

check out the screenshots:

picture1.png is the settings for bonjour. its these settings that tell the router what to "advertise" my network as on the internet. this is where i need to type the ip address in i think.

picture2.png is the disc settings. as you can see i have it selected to share over wan AND advertise globally using bonjour.

picture3.png is the internet settings that my router has from ntl.


thanks everybody so far, i really need this to work so all help is greatly appreciated.

cheers
moe

big_moe

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

IM SOOOOO CLOSE!!!!

i set up a dns with DynDNS. now when i connect to the server aftp://x.dyndns.org it connects!!!!!! my hard drive is listed but i cant select it to try connect to it!!!!! its like there is one small setting somewhere i gotta change.. but i cant find it! everything that mentions sharing is on! and for the moment i have no password on it just to try get it to work!

any ideas??

see the pic attached...

cheers
moe

garyo

Hi big_moe, you see very close, don't really have any suggestions but would love to know how it pans out, as I have the same setup. Good Luck

Hugh_C

Have you tried testing it with something other than "Guest Access: Read Only" in pic 2 above?

Have you tweaked the owner/group/permissions of HDD?

hc

big_moe

SUCCESS!!!!

turns out the reason i couldn't connect to it over the internet, was that i was already connected to it locally, as the drive was on my wifi network. im in work now and its connected grand to it!!

only thing is its very slow, which is annoying!!

cheers everybody
moe