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IMPORTANT : Marketcircle advises that you DO NOT configure a portable computer in this way, unless you know what you are doing.
Background (Optional)
Most people with high-speed Internet use cable or DSL. Most of them are configured with DHCP--dynamic Internet addressing, meaning that their Internet address can change at any time. This contrasts with virtually all public Internet sites like marketcircle.com, which have addresses that only change if the company moves to a new ISP (and big companies like Apple, which act as their own ISP, probably never change their 'net address for major web addresses like apple.com).
Internet Addressing and DNS
If you want to reach a computer on the Internet, you need its address. Real Internet addressing is done using IP addresses (like 216.38.130.100), but people use domain names (like www.marketcircle.com). The software in the equipment that connects you to the Internet converts names into numbers, using a system that works like a phone book (but it's in fact a tremendously large distributed database called the Domain Name System, or DNS). Because of this conversion, you can use associate a domain name even with a dynamic IP address--of course, you would have to update the entry in the DNS database every time the IP address changed. Even if it didn't change that often, it would be a pain to do it, and it can take time for the rest of the Internet to notice when you make updates.
Dynamic DNS
Dynamic DNS provides a solution to this. It involves two main parts: a web-site based service, and a program that runs on the computer acting as your server.
dyndns.com is the biggest service provider in this field. Through them, you can create a host name, like marketcircle.dyndns.org, which you can configure to point to your current IP address. Then you download and install their client software and configure it with the settings for the account you created to manage your host names. This program will run in the background and connect back to the dyndns.com servers to notify it if your IP address changes.
Server Network Settings
If you use an Airport Extreme as your router, you probably have computer addresses like 10.0.10.1, 10.0.10.2 or similar. 99% of the time, your router is set up to use DHCP, and while your computer might never change it's address, it could, if the DHCP server chose to give you a different address (usually because you have two or more computers and they turned on and asked for an address from the DHCP service on your router in a different order).
So, you will want to manually assign your computer an address which is not in the range of the DHCP service's assigned addresses. On D-Link routers, this range is usually 192.168.0.99 through to 192.168.0.254. 192.168.0.0 is the network address--it can't be assigned to a computer; 192.168.0.1 is usually the router address; 192.168.0.255 is a special address called the broadcast address, and isn't relevant to this discussion. So, addresses from 192.168.0.2 through to 192.168.0.98 are free and not in the broadcast range, so you are free to modify your Mac's network settings to use of these as a manually-assigned IP address.
Routers/firewalls
Because of how routers work in most homes and offices (using Network Address Translation, or NAT), it's impossible to reach a computer behind the firewall with normal network access, even if you open ports on the firewall. The addresses used for private networks behind firewalls are not permitted to be used on the Internet, precisely because they are re-used over and over again in millions of private networks. Two computers cannot have the same IP address, just as two different phone lines cannot have the same phone number.
Configuring Daylite Server/Daylite Touch Server Internet access
1. Set up a dyndns account (optional).
You only need to do this step if you don't have remote network access already and you have a Dynamic address from your ISP. If you don't know, please find someone who understands this to set things up for you.
Go to dyndns.com, create an account, pick a host name and install the software. They already have lots of helpful info on their site.
(If you want to be fancy, register and park a custom domain name with a real domain registrar, like domain direct, you can always point the real domain at the dyndns host name. This is very advanced.)
2. Server network settings (optional but highly recommended).
Set up your computer to use a manually assigned network address.
Before switching to a manual address, you will need to write down or screenshot your existing settings, since you have to fill in the router and DNS server addresses, which are otherwise forgotten. You can try to use DHCP with manual address.
3. Enable Internet access.
Go to the Network pane of Daylite Server Admin and turn on "Enable external network access."
4. Set the external host name in Daylite Server.
Fill in your dynamic DNS host name.
5. Configure your router's firewall to allow incoming connections.
Do A or, if that doesn't work, B.
A. If your router supports UPnP or UPMP: In the Network pane of Daylite Server Admin, turn on "Enable automatic port forwarding". (This check box is only available if the software tests your setup and determines that automatic configuration is supported.)
or
B. Manually configure router firewall settings: This process varies with every router. D-Link, Linksys, Bellkin, Airport Extreme--all have different interfaces and may use slightly different terminology. The general name for this is called "port forwarding"--the router forwards incoming connection requests to a different computer (your server).
You will have to do two things:
- create a service entry, which defines a host and port mapping, and
- add a firewall rule, which is based on the service entry.
The service entry is usually just a name, a destination computer address, and the port.
The network ports used by Daylite Server and Daylite Touch Server are needed to configure your router's port forwarding. For Offline support without VPN, you need to forward ports 6113 (Daylite Authentication server) and 6116 (postgres) on the router to the same ports on the server computer. For Touch, you have to forward port 6117 (these ports are always available from the network pane in Daylite Server Admin).
6.Troubleshooting: Testing your network set-up (optional, but highly recommended)..
You can test your routing by using the Network Utility application's port scan feature, and by using the telnet utility in Terminal.
When you install and activate new server software, you should always test it with telnet, first from the computer it's running on, then from another computer on the same network, and finally either from a computer outside (which you could reach with a remote shell program), or using an external address which is port forwarded, first using the IP address, then using the domain name.
telnet will let you check that a server is listening on a port.
If you open Terminal and type
telnet apple.com 80
telnet will connect to Apple's web site; Apple's web site will wait for a request, but unless you speak HTTP, you should just type control-] and then "quit". However if you typed
telnet apple.com 81
you would see this:
Trying 17.112.152.32...
and nothing else. Apple.com doesn't listen on port 81--in fact it's stealth, and doesn't even tell you it's not listening. If a server doesn't answer, you have to type control-C to interrupt telnet.
If you typed
telnet localhost 80
you'd get this:
Trying ::1...
telnet: connect to address ::1: Connection refused
Trying fe80::1...
telnet: connect to address fe80::1: Connection refused
Trying 127.0.0.1...
telnet: connect to address 127.0.0.1: Connection refused
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host
This means that the computer was reached but that it didn't want to talk on that port. "localhost" is the universal nickname for "this computer."
If you have Daylite Server installed on apple.com (17.112.152.57), and your router is configured, and your new dynamic dns address is working, you try the following things:
telnet 17.112.152.57 6113
Trying 17.112.152.57...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
telnet my-awesome_domain.dyndns.org 6113
Trying 17.112.152.57...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
If it doesn't say that you're connected, then something is broken. At which point, you probably need to get the help of a real network support person, perhaps at your local Apple Certified support provider.
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