Re-enable iTunes sharing outside local subnet??
 

Is there anyone out there that has successfully set up Rendezvous Beacon to enable iTunes sharing outside of their local subnet? (I have a computer set up at home and would like to share iTunes files with my work machine.) The only info I can find on doing this is on this website (here's the link). I think I've set up everything correctly, but I can't get it to work.

I have an old G3 tower at home. Port 3689 is open for iTunes sharing, and my Netgear router has port 3689 forwarded to my G3. At work, I have a newer G4. On the G4, I've installed Rendezvous Beacon and set it up with the following info:

Beacon Enabled: (checked)
Service Name: (descriptive name)
Service Type: _daap._tcp.
Port Number: 3689
Text Record: (empty)
Enable Host Proxy: (checked)
Host Name: (rendezvous name of home computer)
IP Address: (ip address of home computer)

I'm using iTunes 4.1 on both machines.

After setting up the beacon, a newly created shared folder shows up in iTunes. When I click on it, it just sits there and spins it wheels.

Any ideas?

Thanks!!

I'm guessing that my work network is blocking incoming traffic over port 3689... that's probably why I can't connect.

Is there a way to get around this? Can iTunes be set to communicate over port 80 or 21? Or is there a way to use SSH to make this work? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

ssh port forwarding is fun
 

A bit of reading up on SSH port forwarding and it's now working.

ROCK AND OR ROLL

Here's how I set it up.
 

Wow, all I have to say is that this is pretty cool. I now have access to over 40GB of my MP3s at home (all legal, of course!). RAWK! I don't know much about networking but it only took me a few hours of troubleshooting to make this work. I'm having some buffering issues (see my other thread), but other than that it's pretty cool.

In case anyone is wondering how I did it, here's how. Keep in mind, my setup is based on the following circumstances: I have a corporate firewall at work and I have SSH access to a webserver that sits on the corporate firewall at work. If your situation is different, then there are probably better ways to set this up. Again, I'm a networking newbie, so someone else could probably explain this better than I can... but here's what I did:

AT HOME:

• Turn on 'Remote Login' in Sharing prefs
• Make sure OS X firewall has port 22 open (so you can SSH to this machine) in Sharing prefs
• I also opened port 3689 so I could share with the other machines at home
• On your internet router, make sure ports 22 and 3689 are forwarded to this computer's local IP address (I have a Netgear router, it was easy to set up via their web interface)
• Launch iTunes. Turn on iTunes sharing (and make sure you have some tunes to share!)
• Go to work!

AT WORK:

• Make coffee
• Install Rendezvous Beacon (download here) and launch.
• Create a new beacon in this fashion:
  Beacon Enabled: (checked)
  Service Name: (descriptive name)
  Service Type: _daap._tcp.
  Port Number: 3689
  Text Record: (empty)
  Enable Host Proxy: (checked)
  Host Name: localhost
  IP Address: 127.0.0.1
• Save the beacon and make sure it's enabled.
• Now you need to set up a SSH tunnel:
• Use Terminal to SSH to webserver that sits on the corporate firewall:
  ssh -l username -L 3689:localhost:3689 servername
• Once you're in, now SSH to your machine at home:
  ssh -l username -L 3689:localhost:3689 homeipaddress
• Leave the Terminal window open. If you close it, the SSH tunnel will turn off.
• Launch iTunes. Make sure you have 'Look for shared music' turned on.
• Click on the shared name in the left column. If it deselects immediately and does not connect, then I believe there is an authorization issue. If it just sits there and never connects, then I think there is a connection issue. Just a guess, but in my hours of troubleshooting that what I figured...
• If it's working, then your home music should show up in the main window.

A couple other things... I have iTunes 4.1 at work and 4.0.1 at home and the version differences cause no problems.

Hopefully this will help out anyone else that is trying this. I certainly had enough trouble finding info on how to do this!

- ethan

Nice detective work...any idea how to do it when your work computer runs Windows?

This worked just peachy!!

A friend of mine has a mac at home and iTunes for Windows at work. He's going to give it a shot tomrrow. I'll see if he'll post here to let everyone know!

;)

Trying to use Rendezvous Beacon for a frined of mine in another state and having no luck. Followed all the instructions and I can't even connect from my laptop via daap address (as opposed to Rendezvous - that works fine but its on same LAN).

Any other advice - SSH is not an option for this other user - he;s a bit of a novice and that would be pushin it!

there is no spoon
 

or rendezvous beacon.

Check the site, it doesn't exist anymore. Or they moved the file elsewhere <have pinged>. Can someone mirror it somewhere for everyone else just catching on to this?

Maybe they've taken it down to do some code upgrade for Panther.

Re: Here's how I set it up.
 

-emphasis yours-

wow, what a combination

;-)

since you're tunneling within SSH, no need to have iTune's port open on your firewall (edit: oh, your forwarding to port 3689, not the default SSH, nevermind), just a security risk (and would allow your ISP's customers on your subnet to lookey into your iTunes library)

EDIT
 

Here's an edit to my original description of how I got this to work... It turns out that you don't need SSH access to a webserver sitting on the firewall, as long as your work has a port open to tunnel out of. I just realized that my work has port 3306 open (for mySQL stuff) and I was able to tunnel out of that port. Works fine, and it's one less machine to SSH through.

Re: Re: Here's how I set it up.
 

Hmm... good point. I don't mind if my library shows up on other machines, I can always turn on the iTunes password protection. Is there really a security risk by leaving port 3689 open? I leave that open so I can share iTunes at home. What do you think?

Re: Re: Re: Here's how I set it up.
 

Oh, I get it... I should turn off the router port forwarding for port 3689, right? That would alleviate the security risk.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Here's how I set it up.
 

you got it. leave your Mac's (software) firewall allowing 3689 for your other Macs at home, but close the (broadband-hardware) router's port forwarding on all but SSH's port

This does one major thing:

1) less software to track for big vulnerabilities: if you route everything over/within SSH just add yourself to the buglist at openssh and you'll know when a serious issue happens.

You could, of course, leave the router port open, and edit the mac's firewall to accept incoming connections on port 3689 *only* from 192.168.1.0/24 (assuming that's your subnet) but closing the router's port forwarding on that port is best.

good job, tho.

now, you can VNC your machine from work, too. just point your local VNC client to the "<local loopback address>:<port to forward>" (ie: 127.0.0.1:5000) and you can ride the same SSH tunnel into your mac at home.

Step by Step Please?
 

Good to see some have figured it out...Can someone post a step by step of how to access a Mac running iTunes from a PC on a different subnet?

I can do it from Mac to PC using Rendezvous Beacon but I don't know how to do it from work on a PC to my home Mac. Thx.

Re: Step by Step Please?
 

I am also wanting to share my MP3s on my Mac at home with my Windows laptop at work. I had installed Network Beacon.. (new name for Rendezvous Beacon) on my Mac and left it running with the settings as mentioned above... But it did not work... I did not realize that the Network Beacon needs to be running on the computer outside the local subnet..,.

So.. is there a Windows program that does the same thing as Network Beacon for Mac?

Thanks for any information,

Chris

Setting up the fake rendezvous server on windows using Howl
 

This does work!

The Link


setting up the fake rendezvous server on windows using Howl

This one was a pain in the ass to figure out, because it requires either an SSH server or some other method of tunnelling from 127.0.0.1 to somewhere else. First go to the homepage for Howl and install it. It will install an mDNSresponder service, as well as a bunch of DLLs and EXEs in its directory, which by default is c:\program files\swampwolf\howl.

Build your ssh tunnel. YOU MUST TELL PUTTY TO LET LOCAL PORTS ACCEPT CONNECTIONS FROM OTHER HOSTS. You need to do this because Howl, unlike Network Beacon, cannot proxy a TCP stream, which is why we need to bounce port 3689 off an SSH server somewhere.
Finally, build a fake rendezvous server. Open a command prompt, cd to C:\Program Files\Porchdog Software\Howl\bin or whereever else it installed, and execute Code:
publish other-itunes _daap._tcp. 2001

Fire up itunes. "other-itunes" should be in the source list assuming you still have Look for shared music still checked. Click on it and cross your fingers. If it downloads the other library, rejoice because you can now laugh at other people's taste in music. If it doesn't, double check all settings, reboot, etc. This is a very finicky beast and I just got it working on windows about 10 minutes ago, so YMMV. Again.

Post any feedback/clarifications/questions/etc in this thread. I have to go to bed now, but I'll check here first thing I can tomorrow morning and see what I can do to clear things up. If you know of a standalone tool that can forward 2001 from the local windows box to the same port elsewhere on the net, it will be the missing piece of the puzzle and you'll have 42 virgins waiting for you in valhalla or something.

-Lx?

Not sure exactly why you go to all that trouble. Remote friend of mine uses RendezvousProxy (java app for mac, pc, linux) and access my shared iTunes library that I run using the fantastic mt-daapd server. No muss no fuss - he fires it up - enters my domain name for the server and it shows up in iTunes and he plays away.

i just downloaded the program network beakon 1.0.1 which as taken the place of the other program and i wont let me make the thing, it says there needs to be a valid service type....i put in _daap._tcp.
why is it now letting me do it? any ideas?

Is this broken now? I can't get it work with iTunes 4.7