stoker web visibility

andursun0013 · May 2012

I've cooked a few things with my stoker and love being able to sleep at night now, but one other reason i got the stoker is to view and control via the web. This is possible so long as i dont leave my house and am on the same network as the stoker. How can i push the stoker controls out to the web to be visible from anywhere with an internet connection?

RustyBrainpan · May 2012

I don't have a Stoker, but the process is the same for any device with an internal web server that you want to access from the wilds of the interweb.

To allow access to the outside world, you will need to do several things. First, you need to have a router on your internet connection that will allow what is called 1:1 NAT also known port forwarding, but some routers call it other things like pass-through, etc. It is also helpful to have a router that is capable of updating dynamic DNS services so that you can access your stoker by a common URL like myhouse.dyndns-home.com rather than having to use an IP address. So if you router can do these things, then you proceed as follows:

1. Establish a dynamic DNS account, I use DynDns.

2. You will need to assign a static IP to the Stoker rather than allow it to use DHCP since you will need to know the IP address of the Stoker to establish the port forward. Some routers/firewalls will track DHCP assignments and make an entry in local DNS such that you can establish the port forward with a name rather than an IP address, but most people don't have these.

3. Configure your router to update the dynamic DNS with your current IP address. Alternatively, note your external IP address that has been assigned to your router so you can use it later. Some providers change assigned IPs at times, some don't, so you will need to keep track of this if you aren't using dynamic DNS. You can also get software that runs on a PC or Mac that will update the dynamic DNS on a configurable time basis, or you can access the dynamic DNS service through the web and update it manually. If you do it manually you will have to check on a regular basis, or at least when you want to access the Stoker from the outside world, to see if your IP has changed.

4. Configure the router for 1:1 NAT or port forward so that you forward an external port, like 8080, to the Stoker's port 80. You can forward port 80 itself, but some providers block 80 so that you can't run an external website.

Now from a web browser outside of your house, you will use a URL like http://myhouse.dyndns-home.com:8080 or http://123.123.123.123:8080 if you are using an IP address, where 123.123.123.123 is the external address you noted from your router. This is the external address of the router that your provider assigned, not your internal network address. The ":8080" at the end of the URL is the external port you configured in the port forwarding in the router, so if you forwarded a different port this will change to that.

This is probably as clear as mud if you don't understand the basics of networking. If you can provide me with the model number of your router, I can help you further.

andursun0013 · May 2012

incredible response. I have a Linksys E1000 which looks to be setup for dyndns.or and tzo.com only for DDNS? I'm not going to use this very often and both of those are services that require a fee. I signed up for dynamicdns.org but not sure I can use it at this point.

RustyBrainpan · May 2012

dyndns.org is the same thing as the DynDNS I referenced, dynamicdns.org is actually tzo, so I don't know if they have a free service or not. Apparently DynDNS doesn't have the free service any more - at least that I can find. Their paid service is like $20/year, not so bad really. You can use no-ip.com, they are free, you will just have to run your update client on a PC instead of the router. Same goes for most of the dynamic services that aren't supported directly on the router. The E1000 does port forwarding, it is under Applications and Gaming->Port Forwarding Range I think.

twlangan · May 2012

If you have a smartphone, Splashtop Remote is an excellent, easy to set up and use remote desktop app. You would leave the software running on your desktop, launch the app from your phone, and view and/or control your computer from the phone. The small screen on the phone is less than ideal, but will do the trick for an occasional peek or adjustment.

http://www.splashtop.com/remote

bigguy136 · May 2012

I will read this more when I get home. Looks like a lot of good info. The Stokers has its own ip. I also want to use my crackberry to update my Stokers

RichardBronosky · May 2012

If you have a smartphone, Splashtop Remote is an excellent, easy to set up and use remote desktop app. You would leave the software running on your desktop, launch the app from your phone, and view and/or control your computer from the phone. The small screen on the phone is less than ideal, but will do the trick for an occasional peek or adjustment.

http://www.splashtop.com/remote

DO NOT go down the SplashTop Remote route for doing this. It will introduce an unneeded and extremely frustrating additional layer of complexity and point of failure. Here be dragons.

If you have a computer on your network that you could run something like that on, you should run ad dynamic DNS client instead. Get your service from no-ip and install their update client which takes the place of the built in auto updating feature in your router.

I have downloaded the manual for your E1000 router and will detail the exact steps you need to take:

1. On page 16 it describes DHCP Reservation, which gives a consistent IP address to a specific device without the need to configure the device to use a static IP address. That is what you want to do. You just check the checkbox beside the IP of your Stoker.

2. On page 27 it describes Single Port Forwarding.

Use these settings:

To IP Address: choose the IP you setup in Step 1.

Enabled: choose enabled

Application Name: You can just call it - Stoker

External Port: 80 (if you use anything other than 80, like 8080, you will have to put it after the domain in your browser. Example: http://andursun0013.no-ip.org:8080/ instead of simply http://andursun0013.no-ip.org/ but that's your choice to make)

Internal Port: 80

Protocol: TCP

This should be very easy to do. You don't want do crazy things like using you phone — to control your desktop — to launch your browser — to navigate to your Stoker — to use you finger to scroll around your view of your desktop — to then scroll around the nested screen of your browser... and that is when everything "goes right". It's so much easier to do it right.

andursun0013 · August 2012

Finally got around to trying this - Thanks for your help RichardBronosky it worked perfectly.

stoker web visibility

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