Router Configuration Tutorial

[r01carlsonr]

Jonathan took the time to type up this great tutorial on how to setup
your router with TestTube. Thanks for doing this!

Most people have their Hava on a home local area network (LAN)
connected to the Internet by a router. This router gets one "dynamic"
Internet Protocol (IP) address (like 110.99.88.77) from your Internet
service provider (ATT, Comcast, etc). Your router assigns the devices
on your home LAN (including your Hava) "non-routable" addresses like
192.168.1.100, and then handles the "translation" between those non-
routable addresses and the rest of the Internet using a technique
called Network Address Translation (NAT). You can find your one real
IP address by looking at your router's status page or by visiting (for
one) www.whatsmyip.org. Most people have a "dynamic" IP address
because this is cheaper and easier to configure, but "dynamic" means
that your ISP will periodically, and without notification, change your
address.

Your Hava's IP address on your LAN (for example, - 192.168.1.100) is
"non-routable". Computers outside your LAN cannot access your Hava,
or any computer on your LAN, unless your computer reaches out first
(or you reconfigure your router). Hava gets around this constraint by
having your Hava box periodically reach out to Hava servers. When you
sit down in your hotel room and turn on the official Hava client, it
checks in with the Hava server which in turn tells your home Hava
machine to reach out to your hotel room and start a session. This
does not require changes to your router configuration and does not
compromise the security advantages of NAT: your home Hava started the
conversation with the Hava servers.

Testtube can't talk to Monsoon servers. It must talk directly with
your Hava, by starting a conversation with the computer at the "IP or
URL" you enter in the Testtube configuration screen. Testtube can
talk with your Hava's non-routable IP address (192.168.1.100) only
when Testtube and Hava are on the same local area network, because no
Internet routing is required to connect two computers on the same
network.

But when Testtube is somewhere else, on a different network - in a
hotel room or cafe, with either 3G or WiFi connection - it's a
different story. You have to make arrangements so that your Testtube
can find and communicate with your Hava. This requires three steps:

1. Your router must have a stable address or Internet name.
2. Your router must forward messages arriving at port 1778 to your
Hava.
3. Your Hava should have a stable local IP address.

1. Your router must have a stable address or Internet name

Your router has a routable IP address like 110.99.88.77. If you pay
extra for a "static" IP address, this number won't change and you can
go ahead and enter it in the Testtube "IP or URL" field - but if you
have this service, you probably don't need to read this paper. Almost
all home networks have a "dynamic" IP address, meaning that the
Internet Service Provider can - and does - periodically change the
address. If your ISP changed your address from 110.99.88.77 to
77.88.99.110 and you didn't reconfigure Testtube, Testtube would never
find your home network.

The mechanism that deals with this problem is called Dynamic DNS
service. The solution doesn't cost money, but it takes some work. Go
to dyndns.org, sign up for an account, and follow the instructions.
You'll choose a userid, password, and domain name (for example
"xanadu240.dontexist.org") and dyndns will give the IP address for
that domain name to anyone who asks. dyndns.org also has instructions
explaining how to configure your router (or a computer on your
network) to keep dyndns.org posted on your current IP address. When
you've got this set up properly, you'll be able to enter
"xanadu240.dontexist.org" in the Testtube "IP or URL" field, and
Testtube will always find your home network.

2. Your router must forward Hava messages to your Hava.

Routers allow computers on your home network to act as web servers,
and you have to tell your router that it has a Hava server. (This
gets around the usual requirement that a computer on your LAN must
start any conversation with an outside computer.) This is done
through a process called Port Forwarding.

Open your router's "Port Forwarding" configuration page and forward
these ports to your Hava's local address (e.g. 192.168.1.100):

UDP and TCP: Port 1778
UDP and TCP: Port 554
UDP and TCP: Port 8554

3. Your Hava should have a stable local IP address.

Your home router may have assigned 192.168.1.100 to your Hava... but
at some point (power failure?), the Hava's "lease" on that address
might expire and your home router could put your Hava at
192.168.1.101, while continuing to forward requests to port 1778 to
192.168.1.100... For your Testtube setup to be completely reliable,
your Hava must have a stable IP address. Unfortunately you can't set
the Hava's IP address directly, so you must do this with your router,
by pairing an IP address with the Hava's factory-assigned MAC address.
Many routers offer this facility - study your documentation, and
study the "LAN Setup" features. Some older and less expensive routers
may lack this feature; if you can't find a way to set this up, then
repeat step 2 above if Testtube stops working.

Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_DNS
http://www.dyndns.com/services/dns/dyndns/

[Jonathan]

Regarding #3 - this is wrong: "Unfortunately you can't set the Hava's
IP address directly, so you must do this with your router..."

In fact you can use the Hava Setup Wizard to set a static IP address
on your LAN. Start the Setup Wizard and click "Next" until you get to
the password screen. Enter the password, click Next, and then select
"Advanced." Click the "Network" tab. On that screen you can set IP
address, subnet mask, and gateway. Be careful to choose an address on
your network that's outside the range assigned by your DHCP setup so
you don't get inadvertent collisions.