Outside access to media

[willow3]

Hi all,

I have seen different flavors of this question on the forum, but I ask it in general:

Does LinuxMCE have any built-in support for access of my media from ouside my home network? I have found support for outside access to orbiter (web orbiter) and also the admin website, but nothing about the media itself.

Maybe that is considered unsafe...?

If linuxmce does not have this support, I guess I can do some linux hacking under the hood to access my data anyhow. I am not experienced enough to tell how (and if it is possible to do in a safe way).

any suggestions or reading tips are appreciated.

[sambuca]

There is no built-in support for media access outside the local network.
Generally speaking, the more entry points you have into your network (outside access), the more likely one of them has a security problem.

There are several ways you can achieve what you want. You probably know about ssh/scp and I think there exist a ssh-file system that allows you to mount a folder through ssh. Maybe http://ampache.org/ will do the trick, if all you need is access to audio and video. And there is always VPN, I think there was someone working on VPN support for LinuxMCE, but I don't believe it was commited/finished.

Anyway, those are the options from the top of my head...

Best regards,
sambuca

[Marie.O]

Maybe someone with an ampache setup, would like to share their setups

[willow3]

There is no built-in support for media access outside the local network.
Generally speaking, the more entry points you have into your network (outside access), the more likely one of them has a security problem.

There are several ways you can achieve what you want. You probably know about ssh/scp and I think there exist a ssh-file system that allows you to mount a folder through ssh. Maybe http://ampache.org/ will do the trick, if all you need is access to audio and video. And there is always VPN, I think there was someone working on VPN support for LinuxMCE, but I don't believe it was commited/finished.

Anyway, those are the options from the top of my head...

Best regards,
sambuca

Thanks for your tips sambuca.
So far I have two use cases when I am on the move.
1. Listen/view media on a remote computer. Ampache seems interesting for this one.
2. Upload photos and videos to my mce network, e.g. when I am on vacation. I did some research on your suggested ssh solution and found a free solution: http://dokan-dev.net/en/. As a test, I tried to ssh to my core using putty. I can't get it to work, it seems like the core refuses ssh connections on eth0. (The core is connected directly to DSL modem, no router between).

regards

[purps]

There is no built-in support for media access outside the local network.
Generally speaking, the more entry points you have into your network (outside access), the more likely one of them has a security problem.

There are several ways you can achieve what you want. You probably know about ssh/scp and I think there exist a ssh-file system that allows you to mount a folder through ssh. Maybe http://ampache.org/ will do the trick, if all you need is access to audio and video. And there is always VPN, I think there was someone working on VPN support for LinuxMCE, but I don't believe it was commited/finished.

Anyway, those are the options from the top of my head...

Best regards,
sambuca

Thanks for your tips sambuca.
So far I have two use cases when I am on the move.
1. Listen/view media on a remote computer. Ampache seems interesting for this one.
2. Upload photos and videos to my mce network, e.g. when I am on vacation. I did some research on your suggested ssh solution and found a free solution: http://dokan-dev.net/en/. As a test, I tried to ssh to my core using putty. I can't get it to work, it seems like the core refuses ssh connections on eth0. (The core is connected directly to DSL modem, no router between).

regards

Re point 2; could it be a ports issue? I am no expert by any stretch of the imagination, but ports have to be specified when accessing the core from outside with HTTPS, and I wondered if it was the same situation for SSH access?

Cheers,
Matt.

[willow3]

I use standard port 22. This works when ssh-ing from inside the mce network (eth1). Does someone know if this port is listened to by ssh server on eth0?

[willow3]

I enabled remote assistance on port 22 in the web admin. Now the error message in putty changed from timeout to refused. I'm not sure if this is a step forwards, backwards or sideways... 

[sambuca]

Its likely a network/firewall problem. I believe the ssh server listens to both the internal and external interface by default. You should check the firewall settings in the web admin, and maybe allow port 22 if it is not listed. I would have thought the remote assistance should enable that port but maybe it isn't doing so.

br,
sambuca

[purps]

Or temporarily disable the firewall altogether?

[Beeker]

Just tested SSH via putty from outside and it works fine on eth0 or eth1 had to do a interface swap in webmin, I just set up a port forward in DSL modem and then another on the core

Beeker

[willow3]

Yes it was the firewall in the core that messed with me. Like you, I thought it would open port 22 automatically, but it didn't. I opened it manually and now it works!

Thank you!

[willow3]

For anyone interested I can mention that I tried dokan. It mounts your remote directory to a windows drive letter via ssh. Quite convenient actually. However there is no support for soft links. If you have any mounted drives in your system you need to access them via /mnt/device/...

I will give ampache a go when I get the time.

Again, thank you guys!