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Local Wifi Syncing and Internet Access


Guest jbredz28

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Guest jbredz28

I was able to sync to my ISY-99 on my local Wifi Network as the app automatically found the ISY's internal IP address on my home network. How am I able to connect when away from home using the ISY's external IP address? Can I only have the internal IP stored in the App or can I also store the external somehow? Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.

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I've copied the post from http://www.mobileintegratedsolutions.com

 

Hi jbredz28,

 

iLinc will intially use the internal IP address that ISY has assigned from your router/DHCP server. In order to connect to ISY externally from your home follow these steps:

 

1. Find your external IP address. ISY will tell you what that is if you enable internet access from within the ISY admin console. Or, you can find your external IP address by logging into your router and look for the IP address your internet provider has assigned to your router.

2. Port forward the ISY communication port. Log into your router and find the page option in the router that allows you to port forward data to an internal IP address. Here you need to enter two pieces of information. Enter in the internal IP address that is assigned to ISY, and enter the port to forward the data on. ISY defaults to port 80 for HTTP access and port 443 for HTTPS access. NOTE: Most internet providers block incomming data on port 80. I'd recommend that you set this value to 443 and use HTTPS access.

3. Enter info in iLinc.

a. Open iLinc and go to the "My Settings" page.

b. Select HTTPS for "Connect Method".

c. Enter the external IP address for the "Host - https://" field.

d. Enter "443" for the Port.

4. Tap the Sync button and iLinc will attempt to sync with ISY over HTTPS.

 

Once you have these steps in place you won't need to go back to your internal IP address as using the external IP address, even if you are on the internal wifi network, will work just as well.

 

One thing to note is that if ISY reboots it may be possible ISY will receive a different IP address then what is currently assigned. If that happens then your router will forward the data to the wrong internal IP address. You have two options here:

1. Re-enter the ISY IP address in the router to forward the data to the new port.

2. Tell ISY to use a fixed internal IP address that doesn't change from reboot to reboot. This is a bit more complicated to do and instructions for performing this can be found on the Universal-Devices Wiki page (http://www.universal-devices.com/mwiki/index.php?title=ISY-99i/ISY-26_INSTEON:Advanced_Configuration_Guide#CT_.E2.80.93_Configure_TCP.2FIP)

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Guest jbredz28

My app is working perfectly over the 3G network via the internet. It just takes a second or two to refresh the device list's status. I guess I wasn't patient last night to wait and thought it wouldn't refresh status via internet and would only do this via local wifi. I think the phrase "Automatic Sync with ISY on Local WiFi" found it the app's description confused me into thinking the app wouldn't refresh a device's status via the internet.

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This doesn't work for me. I am able to sync fine using HTTP over my home WiFi, or using HTTPS over 3G, but it times out if I try to sync over HTTPS over my home WiFi. I'm also not able to connect to the external IP address if I type it into a PC on my home network. Any suggestions?

 

Once you have these steps in place you won't need to go back to your internal IP address as using the external IP address, even if you are on the internal wifi network, will work just as well.

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Guest jbredz28

If this is the case, perhaps don't sync over HTTPS when at home. You should only have to sync when new devices or scenes need to be added to the iLinc App. What do you mean when you say you can't connect to the external IP address when at home and using a PC? Is the ISY external address what you are referring too?

 

I will experiment with the HTTP and HTTPS issues when I get home from work.

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This doesn't work for me. I am able to sync fine using HTTP over my home WiFi, or using HTTPS over 3G, but it times out if I try to sync over HTTPS over my home WiFi. I'm also not able to connect to the external IP address if I type it into a PC on my home network. Any suggestions?

Sounds like your router is not passing "internal" traffic back to the "external" address (as seen from the outside world and forwarded by the router to the ISY). So http to the internal address will work fine, but https to the external address will timeout as you're seeing.

 

Look for option "NAT loopback" or something similar in your router admin.

 

--Mark

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Syncing may only be required when adding devices/scenes, but you still have to communicate with ISY to send commands to the devices. If you try to access ISY via the external IP address from inside the LAN, the browser will just hang. I believe this is a known issue.

 

When I say "external IP address," I am referring to the IP address assigned by my ISP (it's the same number reported by ISY when you enable internet access--the ISY doesn't have its own external IP address). I have a dynamic IP from my ISP, but it rarely changes. Regardless, I use a DynDNS account to keep my dynamic IP synced with a static URL. My ISY has a static internal IP address which I assigned in my router a long time ago.

 

FWIW, I am using a Buffalo router with the latest Tomato firmware.

 

If this is the case, perhaps don't sync over HTTPS when at home. You should only have to sync when new devices or scenes need to be added to the iLinc App. What do you mean when you say you can't connect to the external IP address when at home and using a PC? Is the ISY external address what you are referring too?

 

I will experiment with the HTTP and HTTPS issues when I get home from work.

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Guest jbredz28

My app works fine via my external ip address using HTTPS when connected to my local wireless LAN. I have a dlink router. I didn't try and sync. I only accessed devices and confirmed status changes.

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Got it! Thanks to all!

 

Mark, while we're talking Tomato, I have second, identical wireless router (WHR-HP-G54) which is set up in Bridge mode. Not sure if I have to set the port forwarding in that one, too, or if it'll automatically route all traffic to Port 443 back to the main. Any idea?

 

I also use Tomato: look for "NAT Loopback" on the Advanced->Firewall page, and set it to "Forwarded Only" to fix this issue.

 

--Mark

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Mark, while we're talking Tomato, I have second, identical wireless router (WHR-HP-G54) which is set up in Bridge mode. Not sure if I have to set the port forwarding in that one, too, or if it'll automatically route all traffic to Port 443 back to the main. Any idea?

I've not used Tomato in Bridge mode. But, generally speaking, bridges simply pass all ethernet traffic seen on either side of the bridge to the other. So, from a network perspective, both sides of the bridge are identical. There should be no need to do anything special to pass this traffic. Try it out and let us know!

 

--Mark

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Hi ryarber,

 

I'm considering supporting a dual IP approach where iLinc would detect the local wifi/ISY and use the local IP. If the local wifi isn't detected iLinc would switch to use the HTTPS external IP address. There are some details to work out such as how should iLinc transition from Wifi to 3G and how automatic it would appear to the user.

 

This is something I'll look into adding into a future release. Right now it's low priority on my list as I'm working on supporting thermostats and other ISY features like Programs.

 

Wes

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Hi Mike,

 

Thanks for the suggestion; I'll add it to the feature request list.

 

One of my concerns is I need to be careful how I implement some of the more advanced features so that I don't alienate the basic users. iLinc needs to be easy to use and setup yet allow enough flexability to satisfy the power users.

 

I'm going to think about how best to implement something like this without making it too complicated.

 

Thanks,

Wes

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