Homeseer DNS service

[TonyMast]

Going to purchase the Homeseer service ($20.00 per year) that takes care of the dynamic ip address for remote access. Right now I just want to be able to access HSPRO from my home and the HSPRO server is in vacation home.
My question where do I buy it?
Does it have a cook book to set it up?
Can I use with my Foscam wireless cameras also (via homeseer)?

Thanks

[Rupp]

Select the path Setup > Web Server tab and slide to the bottom. There's a link to setup and purchase. If HomeSeer is running on a port other than 80 you get to your site using the following. mysitename.myhomeseer.com:81. If you cameras are running on other ports your can use the same name just add the port the cameras are running on.

[TonyMast]

Unsuccessful

I've done the instructions 5 times. Step by Step. I have an HTC (South Carolina telephone company) net racer it has an SMC Networks model SMC8014WM box that I (had to) attach a Cisco )or wireless router) to it and configure it. So I have my HSPRO server attached (Ethernet) to the Cisco router. I went into router (cisco) and port forwarded under "applications and games" took the ip addess from the about screen on HSPRO enabled it and not able to connect.

HomeSeer did charge me I see on credit card, but never recieved a email confirmation. but got license id and password from final page of sale.
How can I determine if Homeseer database has the information needed to make this work?

Any other ideas what could be going wrong?

Thanks

PS turned off all firewalls and tried 2 different port numbers 80 & 81

[Pete]

Tony,

For whatever reason it appears from your post that your set up is much more complicated than it needs to be. Do you have a Cisco commercial router or a Linksys router?

If you have a Cisco commercial router you can configure it for dynamic DNS relatively with little effort. Same for a Linksys router.

Post the instructions; as I've never seen them for configuration of the HS DDNS service.

[TonyMast]

Here are the instructions:

"This document will assist you in setting up your HomeSeer Connect remote access service.
MyHomeSeer Connect is a service that will translate a dynamic IP address to a fixed name that you can use to access your home remotely. Most likely, your home's IP address will change over time as your ISP (Internet service provider) will periodically issue you a new IP address. An IP address is a unique number that identifies your home on the Internet. To see what your current IP address is, click or enter the following URL into your web browser:
http://www.whatismyip.com
This will show you your current IP address. You could use this IP to connect to your HomeSeer system using:
http://ipaddress (for example: http://24.56.231.3)
However, your IP address could change at any time, in which case the IP address is no longer valid. Also, remembering the IP address is a problem. MyHomeSeer Connect will monitor for changes in your IP address and associate the IP address with a fixed name of your choosing, such as "billshouse.myhomeseer.com". All you need to remember is the name, not the IP address. There are a couple more steps you need to do to access your home remotely, assuming you already have HomeSeer set up and running on a PC in your home.
1) Enable HomeSeer for remote access. Go into the HomeSeer setup, Web Server Tab and set "Enable server for remote access" to YES.
2) At the bottom of that same Web Server Tab, enter your License ID, password, and domain name from your confirmation email message. Be sure to click "Save".
If you are not using a router and your PC is directly connected to the Internet, then you only need to perform steps 1 and 2 above.
3) Find out the IP address of your PC on your home network. Most likely, your PC is behind a router, so the IP address of your PC is not going to be the same IP address on the Internet. Click on the "About" button in HomeSeer. If you don't have an "About" button, you can enable it on the Web Site tab in Setup. Look for this line on the "About" page:

Lan IP Address: ###.###.###.###

Write down this IP address.
4) You'll need to "forward" the proper port on your router. Log into your Router configuration and look for the port forwarding setup. It may have a different name such as "Applications and Gaming". The HomeSeer web server can run any port number. By default, it runs on port 80. In the router port forwarding setup, enter port 80 as the port number (if it asks for a range, use 80 to 80). For the IP address, enter the IP address you just wrote down in step 2. Make sure this setting is enable if there is an option for this.
If you cannot get access to the router, or don't know the setting, call the company that makes the router and tell them you need help in enabling port forwarding. They will be able to walk you through the setup. Check the manual that came with the router as it should be documented also.
The goal here is tell the router how to route requests that it receives on port 80. Port forwarding tells the router which PC to send the request to. In this case, we want all requests to go to the PC running HomeSeer.
5) Note that some ISP's may block port 80. If the forwarding does not seem to work, go into the HomeSeer Setup, Web Server page, and change the port number to a different port, say port 86. To access your system remotely, you then need to add the port number to the URL like:
http://billshouse.myhomeseer.com:86
6) One other tip: Disable the Windows Firewall on the HomeSeer PC. The firewall may block your ports and not allow access. You can re-enable the firewall later and enable (open) the individual port that HomeSeer is using for "inbound TCP" traffic.
7) If you have 2 routers, such as a wireless router, connected into a VOIP router, which is connected to the internet., you'll have some additional steps. This configuration is quite complex, and should only be attempted by knowledgeable persons, in case something goes wrong. First, you'll probably want to make sure that the WAN port on your wireless router is set to a fixed IP address. Next, you'll probably want to enable the wireless router's fixed IP address to be in the VOIP router's "DMZ". That tells it to forward all network traffic to the wireless router. Then, on the wireless router, configure port forwarding as described above."

I have a cisco router Linksys E2000. which is connected to the smc smc8014WN from phone company. I get into the linksys e2000 and un "appplication and games it asked for the IP address which I enter and select enabled. I've filled in the bottom page of the web server from information recivedon comfirmation page of sale. Save everything and test http://nameIGaveHS.myhomeseer.com:80 from another computer and nothing time out i get. I changed port numbers to 81 and same thing. turn off all firewalls have no antivrus (brand new server). still nothing. restarted HSPRO and same thing.
On the Linksys E2000 the 192.168.1.??? it only ask me for the last 3 numbers I cannot change the other numbers. I get that IP address from the ABOUT on HSPRO lan IP Address.

thanks

[Pete]

The instructions are written for one router combo firewall to the internet.

You have two; your SMC and your Linksys.

Your SMC is a combination modem, router, Firewall, switch and wireless access point.

Do you have any rules in place on the SMC, are you port forwarding, have you shut down the firewall or are you bridging on the box?

Are you using the wireless access point on the SMC for other computers?

An easy test would be to connect your Homeseer server to the SMC network port; let it get a DHCP address. Write down the address. Go to the configuration of the SMC box and configure the same IP your wrote as a DMZ host.

Test your new Dynamic DNS settings. They should work just fine. Then disconnect the Homeseer server from the SMC box. Couple of minutes.

If your preference is to use the Linksys router then it would be beneficial to shut down the access point on the SMC and bridge the WAN port to the LAN port.

I was looking at your manual and you could just set up the WAN port on the Linksys with a static IP on your SMC and configure the IP as a DMZ Host.

From the SMC manual; page 31:

DMZ Host (Demilitarized Zone)
If you have a client PC that cannot run an Internet application properly from behind the firewall, then you can open the client up to unrestricted two-way Internet access. Enter the IP address of a DMZ host to this screen. Adding a client to the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) may expose your local network to a variety of security risks, so only use this option as a last resort.
To access the DMZ configuration page, on the Side Navigation bar, click on [Firewall] link and then click on the [DMZ] link.
To enable this option, click the [Enable DMZ Host] checkbox.
To configure a DMZ host, Enter in the LAN IP Address of the PC on your network in the input fields.

Once you have have configured your HS dynamic DNS address then if you want to continue to utilize the Linksys box then optimally you want to bypass some stuff on your SMC box, configure a small subnet on the LAN side of your Linksys and assign a static IP for your Homeseer server; along with setting the rules up so that you can access HS from the internet.

Another way:

If you are like me with 1 static address, Comcast assigns you an address range with a /30 netmask (aka 255.255.255.252). You really get two addresses, one for the Comcast-provided router (which they don't directly tell you about, but which is implied by the netmasks and can be verified via testing) and one that is transparently sent through that router to a node with your static address. For example, assume I have 173.YYY.XXX.169 as my static address, then the WAN address of the Comcast-provided router will be 173.YYY.XXX.170. It is a common approach to make the router IP address be the highest one in the address range. The node on the static address can be either a server or another router with NAT, etc.

Setup is quite simple.
You need to go to the SMC firewall setting and check "Disable Firewall for True Static IP Subnet Only".
Then set the WAN address of the router you provide to your static address (with the above netmask), connect it to one of the ethernet ports on the Comcast router and you should be good to go. (BTW, if the router you provide does not provide NAT/firewall functionality, you might want to leave the above setting off and go in to the more complex set up under "True Static IP Port Management" and selectivly allow services through.)


Comcast's approach is kind of cool, since if you just use the facilities of the SCM router (i.e., don't stick a second layer of router in there), you can actually use both addresses. In my actual setup, I use the .169 address for my primary server and use the NAT/port-mapping function on the SMC to port forward to other servers (e.g., remote desktop access or services I am testing out). Any box that uses the NAT function will show up on the Internet with the address of the router, not my static server address. (Also note that you will not be able to forward port 80. This is used by the router for management.)

I had originally wanted to do what you do and reuse my existing router. However after moving the VPN functionality off that router to my server (I use OpenVPN) I decided to go for a simplified setup. The SMC router has all the basic functionality needed for a SOHO or SMB router in my opinion. (Its main lack is good bandwidth monitoring or intrusion detection.)


Finally... Strictly speaking neither of our approaches are actually "bridging" as this is a Layer 2 function and we are both suggesting L3/routing techniques. In your example, you are setting up a multi-layer NAT. I my example, we are just using routing as it was intended to be used.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r212...ss-class-modem

[donstephens]

Wow, nice job Pete.

[Pete]

Don,

I have a similiar ISP setup with FIOS in FL; except there the ISP router has coaxial TV connections plus wireless, firewall, router and access point.

[Stevech]

If your modem has an integral router... and you want more WiFi coverage so you add another WiFi "router" - it's in daisy-chain. This is not normally correct.

Your second "router" should be changed to be a psuedo-Access Point (AP). To do this, connect to its setup web pages. Disable the DHCP server. Set the encryption and SSID to be the same as the main modem/router (if it has WiFi). Give this router a LAN IP address of something not used in your main router's subnet: say the main router is 192.168.1.1. Make this second router 192.168.1.2 or some such - and choose a number NOT in the DHCP range of x to y you have set in the main router. OK, now save these settings in the second router. Connect a LAN port of this second router to a LAN port of the main router. Do not use the WAN port of the second router - it is now an AP, and does not route.

Now the dynamic DNS setup for the main router will apply transparently to clients served by the pseudo AP. And there is but ONE router, no cascade.
This scheme is not HomeSeer DDNS specific.

You can also use dyndns.org's free DDNS service.

[TonyMast]

Update

Just an update and thanks for taking the time to help with all the suggestions. Seems HTC Communications (Myrtle Beach South Carolina), doesn't allow their customers into the cable modem (SMC) because it is to "picky and fragile"!! So that's why the IP address and ID's and Passwords wouldn't let me in! So They are calling me Tuesday (7/5) so they can do something from the main office!!! Then I told them but I will want to add 5 or 6 IP cams and who knows what else. They said then they will probably recommend a static IP address!! I told the guy I'm not paying for a static IP and was told someone will call me!! so that's where I am. Thanks again and I will post the final solution in case it becomes relevant to anyone else.
Thanks again!
Tony

[Pete]

Yeah, FIOS didn't like that I went into my router and changed the password right after installation.

Here's a lite drawing making some assumptions / recommendations:

[TonyMast]

OK so HTC communications (South Carolina) was very nice. They said I now have complete control over my Linksys. They made the SMC just a passthough or DMZ i guess. So I port forward in the linksys now I can locally do http://myhomeseername.myhomeseer.comort# and can access HS from other computers. HOWEVER, the only way I have to test it is to try from my browser on my phone (which is not connected locally) when I do this I'm promted for userID and password, which is a good thing, but I have no idea what the userid and password could be. I've tried every password i know of and nothing works. Can someone please tell me where these password are created so I can change them to something meaningful. After I get this to work I have some questions on IP Cam.
Thank You guys so much for your help. I also copied and pasted the diagram for future use thanks for the lessons.
Tony

[jon00]

Have you set up a web user for yourself under the setup/web users tab?

[Rupp]

default/default is the delivered username/password for HS.

[TonyMast]

OK thanks guys, that did it. I made my own userid and password checked it and works great. Gave it Admin+Local. I'm thinking I should delete the other 2 that came with HS, Correct?

Thank You