Advice required please

[Mikey]

Hi there everyone,
I'm not untechnical but I can't for the life of me figure out how to create a connection to my WD MyCloud NAS from outside my local network so I can save files to my iPad locally (eg. when we're away on holiday). I know my external ip address (I'm using my VM router in 'modem mode' and have a separate Asus wireless router handling the 'grunt' work but I don't think that matters much).

I've used the 'create FTP host' option in the paid for OPlayer HD app and input the required external ip address (do I need to also find the dedicated port the NAS server uses or will the default of 21 be ok ? And if I do need to locate the dedicated post my NAS uses, how do I do this ?). I've not input a username or password as I figure it's better to do this each time I want to access the NAS rather than automatically) but I can't seem to create the connection between oPlayerHD/my iPad and my NAS so if anyone could guide me through the process to create the link I'd be very grateful. I don't want to stream the content, just download it to my iPad so I can then watch it offline. I can mange to achieve this when I'm logged in on the same wifi network as the NAS but not when I'm away from home. I used to be able to do this previously, but it's not been possible for some while, so I guess something has changed in the app ?

Any help would be appreciated as I'd rather not take my standalone wifi hard drive away with me with a duplicate of the files I might want when I'm out & about and my iPad hasn't got enough storage on it to just download all that I think I'll want whilst I'm away so being able to connect over the 'net and just pick what I want when I wanted it was always a really useful option. I have other 'player' apps as well (BuzzPlayer, 8Player, etc) if it's easier to do this using one of those and whilst the dedicated WD app is ok, it can only show mp4 files and I have many other types I might want to use rather than just these.

My PC that is attached to the NAS on my network is running Windows 7 if that helps

thanks in advance for your help
cheers

[admin]

1) turn on active mode in the settings page of OPlayer.
2) enable port mapping port 20 & port 21 in your router.(FTP Server's local ip <->route's public ip)
done.

[Mikey]

Hi there admin, sorry for being a bit thick, I've managed to switch on the 'active' setting in oPlayer (settings/settings/FTP&Samba client/active setting switched on) but I've looked through the various options in my VM Superhub router settings and it's not obvious where the port mapping is, so I'm guessing it'll be to open up ports 20 & 21 in the 'port forwarding' options ?

Am I making sense or being a little dim ?
cheers for your help, it's really appreciated
Mike

[Mikey]

if I'm correct, re my previous post, it also asks me for the internal ip address to use, which I guess is the ip where the file(s) are held (eg. the desktop pc or NAS) but I would appreciate some advice on that as well please.

cheers

[Mikey]

Hi again everyone, ok, I'm now officially 'stuck' as, although I've altered the oPlayer settings as per the admin's advice, I can't find where in my Virgin Media router control panel I map ports 20 & 21 to allow it to 'accept' the public ip and thus enable me to access the files held on my NAS from outside my local network.

cheers to anyone who can help me with this

[admin]

if I'm correct, re my previous post, it also asks me for the internal ip address to use, which I guess is the ip where the file(s) are held (eg. the desktop pc or NAS) but I would appreciate some advice on that as well please.

cheers

yes, the same as port forwarding, and local ip should be the ip where your files are held, and public ip, should be the public ip of your route

[Mikey]

ok, so now I feel really thick - I've altered the settings to 'active' mode in the 'general' option, have added ports 19-22 in the port forwarding section of my router using the local IP address of the NAS that the files are held on but I still can't seem to access the files when not on my local network. I've got a feeling I need to allow either my iPad or NAS in through the public ip address but I've had no luck in finding how/where I do this, so feel free to tell me to go away and just d/load files when I'm logged in on WiFi on my local network, but I used to be easily able to do this when on a remote network a while ago, so I'm sure there must be something I'm not correctly doing (and it's probably something really simple).

I've set up external access on my iPad using my public IP address as the host and port 21 in the "edit FTP host" option so I'm presuming it must be something to do with this now ?

thanks again for your patience, I really do appreciate you bearing with me and, as I say, if it's getting a little wearing for you now, feel free to tell me to leave it alone.

kind regards
Mikey

[Mikey]

As an aside, I've set up external Dropbox access, and that works just fine, giving me access to all the files I've got on there, so it's clearly an issue with the way my NAS/router is set up rather than the oPlayer program, but I'm scratching my head to try and understand why I'm getting a 'failed to connect' message each time (I don't even get asked for a username or password to access the NAS).

The symbol next to the NAS name looks like handcuffs/2 'o's at an angle linked by a short straight line, which I'm presuming is FTP access ?

cheers
Mike

[admin]

As an aside, I've set up external Dropbox access, and that works just fine, giving me access to all the files I've got on there, so it's clearly an issue with the way my NAS/router is set up rather than the oPlayer program, but I'm scratching my head to try and understand why I'm getting a 'failed to connect' message each time (I don't even get asked for a username or password to access the NAS).

The symbol next to the NAS name looks like handcuffs/2 'o's at an angle linked by a short straight line, which I'm presuming is FTP access ?

cheers
Mike

You need a IT guy to help you on this, just port forwarding and nothing else needed, you can try another ftp client to see whether your port mapping is correctly, such as Cyberduck(for both windows and mac os), it has logs, so you can check whether you got stuck.

[Mikey]

I think I might have cracked it ! - before I went down the route of downloading & installing another FTP program, I've just tried setting up the NAS in oPlayer using the Samba server option (the monitor icon) rather than FTP and voila ! it appears to have let me in ok. The only downside is that I can't seem to (i) port forward the same ports in my router using a different internal ip address (I have 2 NAS servers in my network) or (ii) change the port being accessed in the Samba option in oPlayer (the default of port 139 seems unchangeable) so that I can have different ports forwarded in my router.

Ah well, no big deal, most of what I'd want to access remotely is on the NAS that I can access, so that's a big step forward from where I was, thanks admin !