WelcomeToYourMac

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Port Forwarding on an Airport Express

By default, WelcomeToYourMac works inside your network, but how do you access your Mac outside your network? The answer is port forwarding.

Every router is configured differently, so in this tutorial I’m going to walk through forwarding the necessary ports for WelcomeToYourMac on an Airport Extreme. If you have a different router, you might have to look up similar instructions in your router’s manual or on the internet.

Step 1: Find out your ip address

This is the internet address we’ll use to access your Mac from anywhere. Go to http://whatismyip.com/ and take note of the ip address it displays. If it says your ip address is 123.123.123.123, then by the end of this tutorial, you’ll be able to access your Mac at http://123.123.123.123:5010/

Step 2: Find your internal ip address

This is the ip address of your computer inside your network. To find this ip address, open up Network Utility application on your Mac. It should look something like:

Step 3: Configure your Airport Express

Open Airport Utility, and find your router. Then click “Manual Setup”. The Airport Utility will start loading your configuration…

Next, click the Advanced tab, and then click the Port Forwarding tab. Your window should look something like this:

Step 4: Forward port 5010

Click the little [+] below the list box, and enter “5010″ as the TCP ports. Also enter in the ip address from Step 2.

Click Continue, then name the setting as “WelcomeToYourMac” so later on you can remember what it’s for and not accidentally delete it :)

Step 5: Save and Update!

That’s it! Just save your settings on the router. The Airport Express will reboot, and during this time your internet will be offline. After it restarts, you should be able to access your Mac from the ip address you found in Step 1!

15 Comments

15 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Lee Seaver // Dec 18, 2008 at 8:54 pm

    ok, fallowed the port forwarding tutorial, except i dont have a airport extreme, i have a linksys router. Im trying to access it through my iphone, but it isnt working, i keep getting “safari could not open the page because the server stopped responding.” message(on my iphone 3g) any ideas???

  • 2 adam // Jan 7, 2009 at 1:32 am

    sorry it took me so long to respond, just now getting caught up from vacation :)

    i’d verify first that you can access it from your computer directly. Oopen Network Utility on your mac, and find your computer’s local IP. from the computer running WTYM, can you load it up in safari at can you hit it via https://youripaddress:5010/ ?

    if that’s working, then the problem is that the port isn’t forwarded correctly. if that isn’t working, then it’s the wrong internal IP altogether. maybe using the wireless IP instead of ethernet, or vice versa? etc?

    in future versions i’m going to try and put in some auto-configuration / diagnostics to help make setup easier. right now it’s a bit too tedious imo :P

    thanks for trying WTYM, lmk if you have success setting it up.

    cheers

  • 3 Lee Seaver // Jan 7, 2009 at 1:38 am

    dont worry about it, i have been kind of side tracked myself. i can access it from my computer directly, and from my iphone if im on the same wireless internet. i myself have a feeling its the port forwarding just becuase i wasnt 100 sure of what i was doing, also i think its because the local ip of my macbook changes becuase we have like 4 laptops in the house and we probally keep changing around and stuff. ill try the ethernet, and i will let you know if it works or not, im just not gonna get to that tonight. also, where would be the place to ask a different kind of question but it is relating to WTYM and one of its functions.

    Thanks

  • 4 adam // Jan 7, 2009 at 1:49 am

    yeah, sounds like the ports aren’t forwarded at all, or are forwarding to the wrong internal IP. after a quick search, this thread seemed to be a good start on how to set up a static internal IP, which might solve your problem.

    besides that, just double check that the external IP you’re testing with is actually correct, and double check that your internal IP is correct.

    feel free to ask questions just about anywhere :) this page is as good as any. if traffic/question volume picks up much more, I might open up some forums for a more proper place, but until then, ask away :)

  • 5 Lee Seaver // Jan 8, 2009 at 8:48 pm

    ok, cool. my question would be, (if i am allowed to play with the program) how can i make or edit WTYM so that it doesnt show up in the dock? maybe only in the toolbar place or something like that. second, is there a little snippet of code or anything like that that can make it so the web cam updates like every 10 seconds?

  • 6 Lee Seaver // Jan 10, 2009 at 6:53 pm

    ok, so i have my ports forworded to 5010, eternal and internal, to my ip adress, just tried accessing it from my iphone, didnt work, it gave me the “safari could not open the page because the server stopped responding.” any ideas? also, just set up my internal ip to stay the same, ill try again. also, does it make a differnce if my external ip is 12.123.123.123 not 123.123.123.123?
    thanks

  • 7 Biff Henderson // Mar 29, 2009 at 11:13 am

    i have and time capsule. i looked under the Advanced tab in the Airport Utility but found i was missing the ‘port mapping’ tab. i have following tabs under Advanced: Statistics, MobileMe and IPv6.

    a little help, Please?

    this looks like a great app! i am eager to try it out.

  • 8 Steve // May 28, 2009 at 6:45 am

    I cant get it working. I have done the port forwarding (netgear, service, added the service as that port)…when I go to the address, it comes up with ” to view this page you need to log in”. So, I put the computer name, and password…but it wont let me in…???

  • 9 Lee Seaver // Sep 30, 2009 at 6:19 pm

    So i finally got an Airport Extreme, Fallowed the directions, but to no avail, it still did not work. Any help?

  • 10 dale // Oct 22, 2009 at 10:41 pm

    I click on the advanced tab of the airport utility but there is no Port Forwarding tab . help

  • 11 fabio // Nov 5, 2009 at 6:57 am

    hello i just have tried and loved this app! works great on safari! but theres is only a thing i can not solve, i’m under a 3g usb dongle from vodafone at 5mb and my ip changes every time i reconnect, so if I’m not at home i don’t know my ip adress at the moment. i was not thinking of paying a monthly few for the static ip. there’s any solution? thanks for this project

  • 12 adam // Nov 22, 2009 at 12:38 am

    @fabio,

    check out something like http://www.dyndns.com/services/dns/dyndns/

    it’d let you type in a static host name instead of using your dynamic ip address

  • 13 Tim // Dec 1, 2009 at 9:10 am

    Hi, as the information here isn’t about setting-up an Airport Express, maybe you should edit the title of the post to “Port Forwarding on an Airport Extreme”.

  • 14 iAddicted // Feb 23, 2010 at 2:25 pm

    Hi!

    I just found your site today, and spent the whole trying to make it work. Unfortunately it doesn’t =(

    First of all, inside my own network:

    First of all, I didn’t even know, what URL to enter. I wasn’t even absolutely sure, whether I have to install “WelcomeToYourMac” on both computers. So maybe it would be a good thing to write a manual for beginners :-)
    Finally, it worked and I could access my iMac from my iMacs browser. However, I cannot look at e.g. the pictures and I do not see a preview. And the screen sharing doesn’t really work as well - I only see a still picture/ it is veeeeeery slow. Maybe its because the “host” and “client” (or whatever you call it) was the same computer?!
    I also found out, that I could only access the iMac, when i typed “https”, as “http” resulted in a “Bad Request” page.

    Secondly, via internet:

    Actually, I want to use “WelcomeToYourMac”, to access my iMac with my MacBook, when I am at the university. So I signed up at DynDNS and set up the port-forwarding on my router. However, it sadly does not work =( When I visit my “DnyDNS-URL” I only see my Router’s-Settings-Page. Probably because it correctly redirects the URL to the Ruuter-IP, but not to the 5010 port and consequently to my iMac’s IP! So how can I type in my URL with the port? Lets say ma URL is “WTYM.dyndns.com”, should I then type “WTYM.dyndny.com:5010″ ?!
    Apart from that, I also can’t access the iMac, when I type the ip (tried both) with :5010 :-(
    But maybe it just doesn’t work, as I once again tried to access a computer in the same network - I’ll try again tomorrow, when I am at the university.

    Lastly:

    As a matter of interest: Is it actually safe, to give my iMac a static URL and open the Port? Could someone use that port to hack my Computer? And I should probably password-protect my routers settings-page, as everyone, who knows the URL, can access it now, right?

    I hope you can help me and my problem helps to further develop WTYM. I think it is a very exciting programme, which is why I wrote all this (and not to criticize you), which was actually quite hard for me as a German - i hope one can understand everything =)

    Best regards & Thank you for all your efforts!!

    PS: I don not really know much about IP, DNS and all that stuff - so please by be kind ^^

  • 15 iAddicted // Feb 24, 2010 at 4:40 am

    Wooohhhooo…. it kinda works now!
    But only when I use “https” instead of “http”.
    And how can I type in the DynDNS Url and tell him to connect with Port 5010? I don’t want to look up my current IP every time….

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