70 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC| JUN 08 | http://www.maximumpc.com
R&D^
EXAMINING TECHNOLOGY AND PUTTING IT TO USECONFIGURE YOUR ROUTER
At this point, SqueezeCenter should
be properly confi gured to work on
your internal network, but machines
outside the loving embrace of your router
won’t be able to access the web interface or
the convenient streaming fi le. To enable exter-
nal access, you’ll need to open up your router’s
confi guration interface and confi gure port
forwarding for the ports SqueezeCenter uses.
Your router’s IP address will usually
be the same as the default gateway that
ipconfi g displays. Type that address into your
web browser and log into the router using
the password you created when you fi rst
confi gured your router. Next, you’ll need to
look for a section labeled Port or Application
Forwarding. It’s usually in the Advanced
section of the router’s control panel. If your
router lets you specify port forwarding based
on a rig’s name that will update as your com-
puter’s IP address changes, you can simply
specify the rig that will be used for streaming,
set it to forward incoming TCP traffi c to port
9000 on the server rig, and save your settings.
If your router doesn’t let you specify
port forwarding by rig name, you’ll need to
confi gure your server’s IP address manually.
Open your Network control panel, right-click
your network connection’s icon, and select
Properties. Double-click TCP/IP and you
can manually specify the IP address, Subnet
Mask, Default Gateway, and DNS server
info. Your default gateway is the same IP as
your router and the subnet mask is usually
255.255.255.0. You’ll need to pick an IP for
yourself; most routers reserve the range from
x.x.x.2-x.x.x.99 for static IPs. You can choose
any unused number in that range. You should
be able to get your DNS server info from
the WAN or Internet setup section in your
router’s control panel. Once you’ve set up a
static IP, go back to your router’s forwarding
menu and forward the appropriate ports to
your new address.SET UP DYNDNS
You should now be able to connect
to SqueezeCenter from outside
your home network, but only if you
know your external IP address, which your
provider can dynamically change from time
to time. We’re going to use the free DynDNS
service to automatically forward traffi c from
a custom URL to our home network—the
program updates the IP address every time
your provider changes it. Before you proceed,
you’ll need to set up a free account at http://www.
dyndns.com.
Once you’ve activated your account,
log into the site and go to My Account.
Then click the Add Host Services link and
select a hostname and URL. We went with
radiowill.kicks-ass.net. Input the IP ad-
dress currently assigned by your ISP (which
you can get from http://www.whatismyip.com).
Be sure to save your settings!Now your stream is set up, but your friends want in on the Internet radio action.
Unfortunately, copyright law doesn’t allow you to legally stream your tunes to any-
one but yourself. If you want to stream to others, you can—but you have to pay. To
get a license to broadcast, go to http://www.ascap.com/weblicense/. If you’re choosing
songs for your friends yourself and not running ads, you’re eligible to use Schedule
A of the Non-Interactive 5.0 ASCAP license, which costs $288 a year. Or you could
just tell them to make their own station.BROADEN YOUR BROADCASTStream to Your Pals—Legally!
INSTALL THE DYNDNS UPDATER
Next, you need to download the
DynDNS Updater, which you can
download from http://www.dyndns.com,
as well. Install it on your server machine
and follow the prompts. It will ask you for
your DynDNS username and password
and then ask you which of your DynDNS
domains you want forwarded. Make sure
you check the Enable Automatic Updates
option; we recommend you run the Updater
as a service, which will force it to start
when Windows starts whether a user is
logged in or not.
That’s it! To listen to your stream, open
your favorite MP3 player and go to the Open
Stream option (the shortcut is Ctrl+U in both
iTunes and Windows Media Player). The
URL you’ll use is http://yourcustomdomain-
goeshere:9000/. Once you’ve connected to
the stream, open the SqueezeCenter inter-
face in your web browser using the same
URL. Then you can select the tracks you
want to listen to and rock out!4
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