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2012-01-09, 17:20
I just installed xbmc on my iPad and everything works great on my home network.
Is there any way to set it up so that I can stream my media files over the internet when i'm away from my home network?
Thanks!
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kno1
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Though your mileage may vary depending on the video and how it's encoded, I've been doing this by running an FTP server and adding that server as a source.
It works pretty good, the only downside is that xbmc can't write to FTP folders, so if you use the subtitle add-on, you need to configure it and the video settings to use a separate subtitle folder on the local machine.
Remco
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2012-01-10, 19:03
Thanks for the response.
Can you give me some tips on setting up an ftp server.
Thanks...
lozell
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kno1
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There's not much to setup. It should work almost right out of the box. There's just a few things to take care of.
First: configuring filezilla:
First, create a user account and add the folders you want to make available to it. At this point, start to test the ftp server locally, on the same PC. (The obvious choice for a client would be Filezilla FTP client)
Secondly, since xbmc uses passive ftp by default, select a nice range of passive ports in the settings under "Passive mode settings" This depends on how many concurrent connections you expect If only one user connects, you don't actually need all that many, 10 will probably do then. so put in something like 1025-1035 then (I however have use port range 1025-3000).
That should already do it. However, you might need to add firewall exceptions to your server and very probably port mappings to you router/modem. You could now try to access the ftp server from outside your own network, but if it doesn't work, you don't really now for sure what it is. Therefor I suggest you first try from the same computer the server is running on. Then from another computer at home, that's on the same network. And finally from outside your network, over the internet.
So, start testing from the same computer. Just connect to "localhost". If that already works, great, otherwise, check if it works with your firewall temporarily disabled. If it then works, you know you need to add exceptions to your firewall (allow port 21 for incoming connections to filezilla + the passive port range (ie. 1025-1035)
Next you should try to test to access the server from another computer, but still in you local network (if possible). Because this will really show if you need to add exceptions to the firewall, usually, all connections within 1 computer are allowed, only once you try to access a computer from another computer does the firewall really kick in. Also, try to use access the ftp server from xbmc then, to see if that is working.
After having done this, the only thing left is accessing it from outside your house. For this, you will probably need to add a port mapping from your internet modem to the computer running the ftp server. You need to forward port 21 en the passive ports (1025-1035) to that computer.
And then you will need to test it again. If you still haven't had to add exceptions to the firewall, you might have to do it now, since the origin of the new connection is now outside your network, which could trigger stricter rules by your firewall.
I hope this helps.
Kind regards
Remco
