Thread: calibre content server problem
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Old 02-16-2012, 12:34 AM   #4
toddos
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sovre View Post
I can access the calibre content server just fine from Stanza on my iPod, but for whatever reason I can't seem to access it anywhere else, including from the web browser of the computer from where calibre is installed, if I use my public IP address.

I am using an Airport router which I have set up to forward port 8080.

But if I type in my public IP with the port in my web browser, it says unavailable. I am also now trying to access the content server from Aldiko. I added the content server as a catalog in Aldiko, but all attempts to access it result in a timeout.

I'm assuming that somehow my airport router is causing the problem here, but I don't know what more I can do but forward the port? Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.
What URL are you using? Your external IP? If so, and you're doing it from inside your network, you've run into a NAT loopback problem (or rather, the lack thereof). Basically what's happening is that when you hit your public IP from inside your network, your router recognizes you as internal and directs you to the internal IP of the router, bypassing the external forwarding rule. So if your router is 10.0.0.1 and you're forwarding 8080 to 10.0.0.6 from the external IP, you're really hitting 10.0.0.1:8080. NAT loopback means that when you access your external IP from your internal network, the request is routed out of your network, onto the internet, and then back into the router on the external interface (it's more efficient to bypass all of that if it can).

I'm getting conflicting info about NAT loopback support on the Apple Airport router. One site says it does, another says it doesn't. I don't have an Airport router so I can't check the configuration to see if it's possible, but if you can't make it work then the easiest option is to refer to the internal IP when you're inside your network and the external IP when you're outside your network.

Technical alternatives: you could see if the Airport can flash alternate firmware like DD-WRT or Tomato, or you can do what I do and run a linux box as a router and either setup NAT loopback through iptables rules or use Apache as a reverse proxy for a dynamic dns hostname. I can go into more detail if needed.

Edit: The reason Stanza works is because it's finding the local machine via UPnP discovery (Bonjour). It's not going to the external IP.
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