Offline automation with Homeseer - Need help

[leaveme]

I'm very new to home automation and Homeseer.

I prepared an old laptop with Win7 Pro + HSPro. I'm using a CM11A and a CM19A to control my X10 modules. Everything runs just perfect. But I need online access to my Homeseer PC which is impossible at this stage due to the following facts:

1. Dynamic DNS is not feasible since my ISP blocked the required port. I made lot of request to open but none worked.
2. Static IP is not allowed for individual (due to local regulatory act) in my country.

I'm thinking of an offline concept in the current context:

1. Homeseer will be at home which will control my automation devices.
2. Some macro or plugin will write the Homeseer action/events to a file and then immediately upload to my site server (through ftp).
3. I'll have a custom page at my site (i.e. www.xyz.com) from where I can get the status of the device and perform some actions (i.e. On/Off etc.).
4. Some script/utility will immediately get the actions from my site (server) though I'm still not sure about the way.

Any thoughts or ideas will be appreciated.

[Rupp]

Using something like myHomeSeer connect you can put HomeSeer on any port you like and still connect. If you have access to FTP you can even use that port.

[Guest]

Or there is Jon00's Homeseer IPUpdate script which works well and is free.

[leaveme]

Buddy, you are still talking about Dynamic DNS because as per my understanding "myHomeSeer connect" is also a DDNS service.
DDNS is not working for me.

Here is the detail of my current session -
ipconfig output at my PC:
---------------------------------
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : BanglaLion WiMAX
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . :
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 10.52.64.236 (Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 0.0.0.0
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 202.56.4.120
119.30.37.10
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled

However www.ippages.com shows my address: 119.30.38.71 but I can't even ping to this ip.

For your information, firewall service at PC already been disabled.

[Pete]

Have you tried to use the remote features switching to other ports (HS and HSTouch?)

The local ISP's here do give you some web space and I use that web space for my weather station Cumulus software. Every 5 minutes or so the software FTPs required and dynamic files for the weather station.

There are many more variables with HS and it would be more difficult to do something similiar. A single dynamically changing page with included variables would work one way but not two way. But if all you are concerned with is status then it wouldn't matter.

It might be easier though maybe to take the hardware to the network (HW to IP) and have the accessible server run Homeseer using the HW remotely? It wouldn't be much data, simple connection and just about any port could be utilized; even maybe a simple within an SSH tunnel multiple hardware connections might be possible.

1 - Homeseer running on a server externally with access to the internet and yourself.
2 - if internet service provider would allow one SSH tunnel from you to your server on the internet then you could configure whatever hardware serial or USB to communicate via the SSH tunnel to the HS server on the internet.

In the early days of HS (late 1990's / early 2000's) many folks considered or did some dynamic HS status / webpage "reporting" to their ISP's if I recall.

[reidfo]

You could also use a remote access solution such as LogMeIn.com which is free. You don't have to open up any incoming ports and can access the machine's desktop over the web.

[Pete]

Reid, not too sure if that service would be provided there. Many years ago while working on some pipes there; the main external to the country internet access was via government contolled main pop's. At the time it was related to Airport connectivity and while I was still working with the international provider (SITA EQUANT or Airinc); the international provider was working for the local provider which was controlled by the government making my simple project a bit more complex. One thing that helped at the time was using a custom Cisco OS using a MATIP protocal which converted very old legacy transport to IP which helped a bit.

[leaveme]

Yes, Pete is right...it's really complicated scenario. That's why I'm thinking about offline concept.

Do you know any plugin or something so that I can upload Homeseer data to my site?

I'm also thinking another alternative....map my ftp location in the PC as a local drive. In this way I can avoid upload/download complexity.

[Pete]

Not off the top of my head.

Here and I am not sure if it would work I create an encrypted SSH tunnel; then inside of the tunnel another pipe depending on what I want to do; RDP, VNC, Telnet, HTML, etc. If you could create a point to point encrypted VPN tunnel with a source with unlimited access then you could utilize that (IE: my dealings with software developers say working for large multinational companies like TATA would allow this sort of stuff)

Your network access==> encrypted tunnel ==> another place nearby with open access to the internet ==> to and from traffic to your homeseer box.

BTW I don't really use any standard internet ports for my stuff; never have.

[leaveme]

I can't find any option in Homeseer to assign a script. Where do I put it...?

[Todd32]

You have a bigger issue to deal with, that your ISP is not giving you a real addressable IP address but rather a private internal one. I can't tell whether you are being NAT'd and traffic is going through a proxy or not. No DNS related solutions are going to help you here.


If you are ONLY being NAT'd..which is the more likely scenario (easier for small ISP's to setup and manage). You might have another option through a VPN setup like hamachi (its pay but might do what you need), however that doesn't support mobile devices as of yet...if ever. I would skip SSH based tunnels to gain potential support for mobile devices and not have to rent a server like EC2 in the cloud (I love SSH and some of my code is even in the base <end shameless self promotion>...but it's not ideal for what you are doing long term I suspect would require an external server running SSH you could manage).

So LogMein works if you want remote desktop control..slow.

Hamachi (bought by LogMeIn) gives you VPN capabilities so you could skip remote desktop and get a browser straight to your homeseer server but doesn't give you IOS support.

Which leaves the last option...setup a full VPN that is IOS compatable from both you PC and your IOS devices....which is a small pool of providers unless you build your own VPN server in the cloud (open PPTP). OR check out
http://www.hotspotshield.com/ that runs the service for you and you get IOS compatibility and PC compatibility so your web browser and your IOS clients will work as well.

That might be your best bet IMO...albeit a little bit of work.



Yeah having a ISP that won't give you a real IP address is a pain in the rear.