Back to Back to my Mac

Quoting Big Steve <bigstevemactampabay.rr.com>:

> Hi, folks
>
> I'm wondering if anyone round these parts has any success using Back to my
> Mac. . . . I have a client whose network is misbehaving.
>
> Westell Versalink Model 327W

Is this routing/NATing or just the DSL modem? Back to My Mac doens't
work for me either . . .I've seen notes on the net which indicate it
doesn't work with double NATing and that it doesn't really work unless
you have one of the specific routers they're using.

I can attest that it doesn't work through double NAT, my Airport
Extreme is in bridge mode downstream of my Netgear firewall/router. It
doesn't work on my file server either and it's not double NATed . . .
my Netgear does have UPnP and it's turned on . . . so that's not it
either. which has a static IP address.

I've about decided that BTMM is not quite ready for prime time . . .
there are a couple other options though.

Logmein.com allows you to establish a web based VPN. There are both
free and paid versions and your clients can turn it off except when
you need to get access. It works fine for me.

There's also HamachiX . . . not to be confused with Hamachi Logmein.
HamachiX sets up a VPN using the HamachiX folks server and once you
have created and logged into a network from both machines it just
works.

There's also VNC . . . and while VNC itself is unencrypted it's pretty
easy to set it up to run on SSL connection. Takes a little setup ahead
of time . . . setting her Airport to do the right port forwarding,
setting her up with a dyndns.org (or you can use her IP directly of
course) domain for easy remembering, building a terminal command file
on your laptop to port forward via SSL a port on your laptop to her
Airport which then gets port forwarded to her Mac . . . then it's a
simple double click the terminal file to open the connection and VNC
to the local port to get her screen. This also works well.

Apple has a list of tested/approved routers on their site; but if she
needs wireless and you put the Airport downstream of it you'll still
run into the double NAT thing.

neil

On Jun 13, 2008, at 3:25 AM, Big Steve wrote:

> She has Verizon DSL, and the network is quite simple: four iMacs and
> a Power
> Mac connecting wirelessly to an Airport Extreme, which then connects
> to a
> Westell Versalink Model 327W which has a static IP address.

First, have her upgrade the systems to 10.5.3 if she hasn't already,
then check the BtMM panel in the .Mac preference pane for a message
indicating what's wrong. If she can't upgrade to 10.5.3 for some
reason, make sure the OS X firewall is set to allow all incoming
connections. In 10.5.2, BtMM doesn't automatically poke holes in the
firewall, so if the firewall is on, BtMM won't work.

> I've followed Apple's instructions obsessively, but still can't get
> the
> connection to return. I'm thinking the problem might lie with the
> router,
> and so I'd like to ask if anyone has any insights — in particular,
> does
> anyone here happen to know of a router that works reliably with BtmM?

The AirPort Extreme will. You should configure the Westell to use
bridge mode and configure the AE to establish the internet connection
and act as the router for her network. Don't forget to enable NAT-PMP
on the AE.

Two things you can try if BtMM still isn't working correctly:

1. Turn BtMM off and back on on each computer.
2. Use different DNS servers. Some DNS servers, like the one on my
router, are buggy and will cause problems. OpenDNS's servers,
208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220, will definitely work.

Hrm, stupid but true...the opendns server did the trick for me. My own isp's dns server was in there, but no connection, added 208.67.222.222 and BTMM connected right up.

So, I am still grasping the basic concepts,... Just wondering - did you place the openDNS IPs in the router or at in the individual machines' dns? (it's still early for me - hoping this is clear). I have two leopard Macs and a new Airport, and can't get BtmM working outside of my local network. Even the Apple Geniuses can't always get it running, and say there really isn't much info out there. Thanks

On Aug 13, 2008, at 11:08 AM, phrnck wrote:

> So, I am still grasping the basic concepts,... Just wondering - did
> you place the openDNS IPs in the router or at in the individual
> machines' dns? (it's still early for me - hoping this is clear). I
> have two leopard Macs and a new Airport, and can't get BtmM working
> outside of my local network. Even the Apple Geniuses can't always
> get it running, and say there really isn't much info out there. Thanks

The OpenDNS IP addresses go into the network settings on the
individual machines, and they should replace any DNS server settings
you had before.

On Wed, 13 Aug 2008, phrnck wrote:

> So, I am still grasping the basic concepts,... Just wondering - did
> you place the openDNS IPs in the router or at in the individual
> machines' dns?

Either.

I use OpenDNS at home, and have their DNS servers plugged in to my
Airport Express, but I also have them on my laptop so if I ever use it
away from home, it will continue to work with OpenDNS.

This may or may not help with BTMM issues though. As far as I can tell,
that's all based on IPv6 networking, and I'm hazy as to if or how that
interoperates with common traditional IPv4 DNS (etc) servers, switches,
routers, and so on.

--
Chris Devers