Notices

Hi everybody,

I have a question about a certain setup I want to achieve.
I have a NAS at home, which contains all my Music, Pictures and Videos (NAS model: Synology NAS CS407). The NAS is DLNA certified as of firmware version DSM 2.2-0942, see release notes [1]. As if understood correctly the N900 is DLNA certified as well.

When I'm in the same subnet of the NAS, I can see the NAS in my media player (bottom left). I can even listen to the music. Pictures and video are still causing trouble, but that's another issue.

Whenever I'm at another place I would like to have access to the same content on my NAS device. Therefore I've set up an OpenVPN server on my router. I've setup the OpenVPN server to use a TAP device (bridged interface), so my OpenVPN clients get an IP address in the same subnet as my NAS device. This all works fine, my N900 has an IP address in the same subnet as the NAS, so IP broadcasts from the NAS should be visible on my N900. Ping/ssh/http... to my NAS from the N900 works fine.

Unfortunately, I can't see my NAS device on my media player when I'm connected to my OpenVPN server. Maybe the media player is only listening on a certain interface, which excludes my openvpn interface... In fact I don't have a clue why this isn't working. I wanted to post my question on the forum first. If this is a bug in the media player, I would be happy to file this as a bug.

Is anyone trying to achieve the same thing? Or do you have any idea how to troubleshoot this (tcpdump would be nice)?
I can't be the only one having this great idea

Thanks in advance for your comment,


[1] http://www.synology.com/enu/support/...Note/DS508.php
(these are the release notes for the DS 508, but they are the same for CS407)

Hi,
I am also trying to achieve this. When I'm connected to the same subnet with through i can play media from my server. But if I connect to the same subnet with openvpn the media player wont show the media server.

I also can ping the media server from the command line when even if I connect through openvpn. I can even access the media server's http server at ip-of-server:5001 with the browser.

When I used the vpn connection i tried using both gprs and wlan to connect to the internet.

I wonder if this could be fixed somehow from the openvpn packet or can this only be fixed from the media player.

Same issue here. Media Player does not offer connection to media server (tested with TVersity and Windows7 built-in).

Btw. i noticed poor battery life of my N900 when connected via OpenVPN client over GPRS. I have minimized settings for server-to-client and client-to-server keep-alive packets, VPN seems to be properly established with just 2-3 drops and reconnects in few hours. Battery life on VPN ~ 6h, while ~15h under otherwise comparable operating conditions - device usage.

Update: Maemo player is not to blame here, at least in my case. I tested if i can see the media server with the command "djmount" on my Debian system, also available for Maemo armel target. I ran "djmount" in the following configurations:

Case 1: Debian over Wlan in the same network -> media server available

Case 2: Maemo N900 over Wlan -> media server available

Case 3: Maemo N900 GPRS and OpenVPN client -> mediaserver NOT available

Case 4: Debian tethered via N900 GPRS and OpenVPN client -> media server NOT available

For both cases 3 and 4: all the rest of services in my LAN works over VPN (SMTP, IMAPS, HTTP, SSH, ICMP to all machines...) and most of these services are running on the same machine as the UPnP media server.

Probably it concerns an OpenVPN server set-up / routing / iptables issue which I have yet to inspect.
Note: of course I'm running the VPN over TCP (TAP dev) in the ethernet bridge mode, the client coming through VPN is given an IP from the same subnet, no masquerading, no firewalling, just a simple forward eth0 <-> tap0.

In any case I think this issue is purely OpenVPN related as does not seem to be an issue of Maemo platform.

uPNP is a multicast protocol if I recall correctly, and you often need to specifically enable multicast via a vpn (and broadcast for that matter).

The router is going to be seeing the multicasts and not forwarding them I reckon. Depending on how much control you have of the router you could put in an iptables rule to make sure they get pushed over the tap.

Update: after having fixed server side eth/tap bridging, i'm receiving media server broadcasts over VPN. Interesting is, that djmount can mount media servers but built-in media player still does not receive (or purposely ignores?) the broadcasts. One can use djmount for example like this:

from terminal as root
djmount binary I am using is found inside of this maemo package:

The result is that in GRPS mode via OpenVPN I'm able to see my media server folders under /mnt/media-servers under both root and non-root user.

The problem is that all operations in this virtual filesystem are very slow in contrast with navigation from built in media player on "real" shared media folders. IMO it's more related to djmount, cause when tested without VPN just over plain home network Wifi connection, the speed was pretty much the same.

EDIT: MediaBox can successfully and pretty fast access media server over OpenVPN connection if your VPN is properly set-up. I had no luck with Media Player though.

Yeah, having the same problem/wish. I try to setup access with my n900 from anywhere in the mobile network to my home network.

i.e. listening to music, vnc, stream videos

Do you think theres an issue in mediaplayer and if yes we should file a bug report?!

Any new experiences with streaming media from your home network to you and your n900 on the go? Please post.

Thanks in advance...

I was wondering if anybody got any new update concerning this? It is my greatest wish to be able to access my music/video files on my home network from my N900 anywhere with a WiFi connection but i am unsuccesful with the built-in client... Any recommendations?

GIven that DLNA is notoriously flakey, and is a broadcast protocol so not all that compatible with VPNs, the easiest way would be openvpn + wizard mounter.

Connect to your network using VPN, mount your drive containing video and just play them...

Maybe Knots would help?