Help accessing Stoker from outside of LAN


 
E

Ed R

New member
It seems to be a common challenge. I tried just about all of the suggestions on the forum but have not had success accessing my Stoker from outside of my local network. I am able to access the Stoker on my LAN using the Stoker's IP and router's IP. I've forwarded port 80 (and 8080 as well as 23) to the Stoker's IP. I notice the router's log does show incoming external connection attempts but they are not reaching the Stoker. I have also set the Stoker's IP as the DMZ server with no luck. The subnet mask is 255.255.252.0 on my router's internet port and 255.255.255.0 on the Stoker. Could this be causing an issue? The Stoker won't save changes to the subnet mask.

Also, I have not been receiving e-mails from StokerLog. I have a gmail account.

Comcast is my ISP and I have a Netgear router.

Any suggestions to help with these issues would be greatly appreciated.
 
Scratch what I just wrote as you said the router's log shows it's being accessed from the outside world. I've heard of ISP's blocking 80, could Comcast be blocking 23 too? Sounds like you have her configured correctly.

Email: Please don't take this wrong, have you enabled email notifications by checking the box? I've not done this before and spent about 30 min trying to figure out why it would work. Does sending a test email work? I too use gmail and it works like a charm . . . when I check the box.

Sorry, not much help but a couple of ideas.
 
Ed, I had the same problems. I think it's related to the subnet issue, I had the same situation. I was able to get around this by resetting the stoker to dyanmic IP, and then in the netgear configuration, using the Address Reservation settings (under the LAn IP Setup page) to assign a static IP address to the MAC address of the Stoker. If you need any help with this let me know.

Mark
 
Ed

I would definitely fix the subnet mask. Setting it to 255.255.255.0 (the normal) says you are not using a subnet.

With your setting DHCP (dynamic IP) would work but only some of your static IP's would work.

Curt
 
You DO NOT want to change the subnet mask on the External (internet side) port on your router.

Your ISP defines that along with your IP address, default gateway, and DNS settings. They do this to conserve their pool of available public addresses. A subnet mask of 255.255.255.252 just means there are 2 usable host addresses on that external subnet. On the LAN (inside) your router has a 255.255.255.0 mask which give you a pool of 254 Host addresses)

I would try a couple things:

1. You need to have a 'Default Gateway' setting on your Stoker so it can know how to route data back out thru your router to reach the internet (or anywhere other than the local LAN subnet.) The default gateway is the inside address of your router.

You do not have this, or DNS lookup server address, set if you set a static IP on your stoker UNLESS you have flashed it with one of the newer BETA software releases from Kaytat Software.

Easiest way around this is to go back to a dynamic (DHCP assinged) IP address where the Stoker gets all this info set automatically from your router. Check the Stoker user manual for details on how to do this. Then use the Stoker front screen System menu to find out what IP address it has. Also a good idea to do the automatic time setting feature to make sure it is getting out to the internet OK to read the current time from an external time source.

The other option is to upgrade the stoker to one of the newer (and slower) versions that have the twitter options and add these settings. If you have not done so already.

2. Comcast usually blocks port 80 and port 25 on residential internet customers. To get around this you need a router that does port mapping (in addition to port forwarding) where you use a different port on the internet side (like port 8008) and map it to port 80 on the inside when it is forwarded to the IP address of your Stoker. Then on your web browser you need to specify the new port by adding :8008 on the end of the URL or IP address of your router.
(for example http://mystoker.com:8008 or http://64.123.55.12:8008)
 
Thanks for the tips. I was finally able to gain remote access. I reset the Stoker to dynamic IP and reserved the IP address in the router's settings. I also used port 8080 as it appears Comcast may block port 80 (even though their Tech. stated they do not).
 
From the manual:

Re-Enabling DHCP
Press the Sel button to display the IP address.
System Info Enter 255 in the first set of digits in the address.
IP Addr
Press the Sel button 3 more times , 1 more time to save. Press the button to return
to the previous menu,
Wait a few seconds for the DHCP client to acquire a new IP address. From this
point on, DHCP will be used.

Curt
 
Curt, that's the first think I tried. When I do that then reboot the stoker and look at the IP address which should have been set via DHCP it reads 000.000.000.000
 
OK, I got it working. It had something to do with the bridge/gaming adapter. I've been fiddling with it lately. Seems you need to cycle the power after you change anything.
 
Barry (or anyone else)
I have a Linksys wrt54gs. I saw your comment re comcast and the potential need to use port mapping in addition to port forwarding. On my Linksys I have a menu called Port Triggering. Is this the same as port mapping? Looks like it allows the option setting a trigger range start and end port, and assigning it to a forwarded range start and end port.

So in your example I'd take port 8008 and map it to port 80?
 
If "port triggering" is actually port mapping then it will work. However, you'll still need to setup IP forwarding as well. I flashed my WRT54G with DD-WRT and it has 1 setting that does both port mapping and IP forwarding in 1 screen.

The other thing that needs to be done is IP reservation. You need to setup the router such that it assigns the Stoker the same IP address every time it boots. Get the MAC address of the Stoker and setup a reservation to a unique IP address. You then need to setup the stoker for DHCP by setting the first IP address to 255 and saving/rebooting it.

This fact eluded me until I saw Barry's explanation. The Stoker firmware does not let you specify a default gateway when setting a static IP address. Therefore, the wan request will hit the stoker but it won't know where to send the response. If you setup DHCP on the Stoker the DHCP server on the router will assign an IP Address, Net Mask AND default gateway.

In summary, setup 4 things:
1)IP reservation for the Stoker (on the router)
2)Port Mapping (on router)
3)IP forwarding (on router)
4)DHCP on the Stoker

If you are using StokerLog you may also want to remap port 25 to some other port as well. StokerLog uses port 25 to login to Telnet on the unit. There is an option for HTTP Only in Stoker log but your trace will not be as granular as it could be using both port 25 and 80.
 
Thanks for the info Rob. I'm a bit hesitant to flash the router with DD-WRT for fear of bricking. I have flashed my router with the latest of Linksys firmware. I will need to look at it to see where I can reserve the stoker MAC address to a unique IP.

I don't even have the Stoker yet, although I was just sent a shipping notice, so I should have it this week. I'm just doing all the reading now!

Do you still plan on making a video for this topic as well? I've followed all the logic, up to this port forwarding stuff. I'm now fearing I'm over my head, but really like the idea of being able to access the Stoker from my Iphone outside of my LAN. It'll be great!
 
Mark,

I could create a video on how to do this but since my router is running DD-WRT it would be of no value to you. This is more of a network task then a Stoker issue. In fact, you could set this up without a stoker by running IIS on your XP machine and pretend the XP machine is a Stoker.

HMMM...I've got a spare Linksys (the one in the video) that's still running Linksys factory firmware. I could try to do it on that. What version Firmware are you running?

-rob
 
I did a lot of reading on the DD-WRT page. Turns out I've got what they call a neutered wrt54gs (version 6). They discourage flashing this router... they even say sell it! And since I can't do IP reservations, it seems like I may be buying a new router.

As my wife says, these are going to be some expensive ribs!! In some sick way though, learning all this stuff is kinda fun. Looking at one of the new n routers from Linksys.
 
Well that sucks. I seem to remember reading that the newer routers lacked the amount of memory of the older ones. Probably due to refractoring the firmware.

I would try getting an older WRT54G off eBay and while you're at it sell the one you have.

Good luck

-rob
 
I have spent the last couple of days reading this forum and by far this is the best clearinghouse of info on the stoker!

I have a situation to throw out to you folks for some advice on what to try next. I am helping a friend setup his stoker at his commercial BBQ place so he can actually start to get some sleep at night.

I got the stoker on the internal network and it works great. It is using a bridge to an access point and we have no issues with this. We have been able to get stokerlog running fine on a PC on the internal network.

The main reason he got this was to monitor the temps from home via the internet or his blackberry. So far it has been a bust trying to get to the stoker from the outside.

We tried getting to the stoker using the Road Runner dynamically assigned ip with no success.

We set up both a url at dynddns.com and then later at dlinkddns.com so the Dlink DIR-615 rounter would keep the url updated automatically. This is also working and when I log into the account at dlinkddns.com it shows it is active and it is correct.

I forwarded port 80 in the router to the stoker ip address, then later put the stoker into the DMZ with no improvement.

I still cannot get to it from outside his private network. I have checked the current ip address assigned by Road Runner to the cable modem and have it correct.

I think this is my root issue - I cannot get a successful ping to the cable modem's ip address from anywhere via the internet. I can ping the modem successfully from inside the private network, I can also get to the dns, the gateway etc... When I use the url created at dynddns.com and dlinkddns.com and get a "Oops! This link appears to be broken" for both of these. The same if I just type in the ip address into the browser.

Could it be that Road Runner blocks doing this? Any of you folks experienced this or have any thoughts what to try next? Kinda of pulling out my hair at this point. Thanks - John in Austin
 
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