iPhone app to use VPN aswell as WiFi

[grussell]

Hey Sonos,

I've got a house full of your kit and I love it. Just got an iPhone and the app rocks too - one small suggestion, it works great while I'm in the house but it would be great if it worked when I'm outside my house too.

I can VPN (via my iPhone) into my house and was trying to get the Sonos app to work to no avail.

Why? Well - I'm often crammed into a cab with friends heading back to mine (because they love the music!) and I'd like to get playlists ready so the house is rocking before I even open the door.

I was looking for somewhere I could pop a fixed IP or something - or perhaps there is something I can do on my home network which will help it working?

Thanks for listening.

Gavin.

[Avee]

Sonos uses upnp to communicate. This relies on UDP broadcasts which can't traverse subnets. This is technically not possible.

The only way to control Sonos via a VPN is when you VPN into your network in "bridge mode". This is a mode where your network adapter is virtually made a part of the remote network, like it were physically in the same network. I don't think many routers support this. I have been able to do this with OpenVPN where my media PC at home was the host.

[mrpon]

Or something like Logmein could work, if you leave a PC on in the house with the client running.

[ucdscott]

I've search all over this forum and cannot find a detailed answer why I am not able to control my Sonos units at home from my iPhone when connected to my home network via VPN.

I establish a L2TP VPN to my home network. Once connected I am assigned an address on the same local network to which my Sonos units are connected.

I can surf the web using my home internet connection. I can ping my iPhone from any host on my local network, etc. Everything works EXCEPT Sonos. Thus, the question is,

What exactly are the protocols and ports which cannot traverse the VPN tunnel? Are they,

1900 (UPnP advertisements / device discovery)
1901 (UPnP m-search responses)

If so, how can I verify that these packets are indeed being blocked or dropped?

Or has the iPhone app been written so that it only functions when connected to a wireless network,

"Trying to connect to your wireless network..."

Thanks,
Scott

[ratty]

If the message is "Connecting to your wireless network..." then it could be that the app is unable to bind to the VPN interface.

A "Searching for ZonePlayers..." message would be consistent with the discovery multicasts not getting through.

You can verify at the home end by running Wireshark and looking out for SSDP/M-SEARCH traffic to destination address 239.255.255.250 (or even 255.255.255.255).

[ucdscott]

Hello,

I ran Wireshark and was able to see SSDP traffic but unfortunately it originated from other devices on my network and not my iPhone.

What would cause "the app is unable to bind to the VPN interface?"

<Edit>I just verified that I am able to ping my Sonos units from my iPhone</Edit>

What other tests can I perform?

Thanks,
Scott

[ratty]

Originally Posted by ucdscott

What would cause "the app is unable to bind to the VPN interface?"

In a phone the iController would normally be presented with an interface to the WiFi and an interface to the cellular network. Since cellular would be useless for Sonos, one assumes that it's configured to bind to the WiFi. By the same token it may be case that the iController ignores a VPN tunnel interface.

Look to see if you have any VPN configuration options which might force the iController to use the tunnel.

[Majik]

Assuming the App even works with the VPN interface, you will need to make sure that your router/firewall supports forwarding of broadcast/multicast packets between the local LAN and the VPN. By default most won't have this enabled, and many won't sup[port it at all.

If there is no specific configuration option for this, then it's normally pretty safe to assume that it won't support it.

Cheers,

Keith

[ucdscott]

ratty/Majik,

Thanks for the replies. I've spent the last week running Wireshark, posting to my router's forum, and tweaking firewall rules. I'm now convinced that I have my VPN server and network configured correctly and that the iController (Sonos iPhone app) is too blame.

The message I am receiving, "Connecting to your wireless network..." and ratty's comments lead me to believe that the Sonos developers have hard wired the app to the wireless interface.

May I ask why your responses appear to be speculative? As moderators can't you simply ask the developers if the app will only bind to the wireless interface?

Thanks,
Scott

[Majik]

Originally Posted by ucdscott

May I ask why your responses appear to be speculative? As moderators can't you simply ask the developers if the app will only bind to the wireless interface?

Because we don't work for Sonos (check my signature below). We are customers too. The only contact we have with Sonos which is different from other customers is we have some administrative contacts in Sonos support, primarily to discuss policy, technical problems with the forum, and things like spam-busting techniques.

I will take this opportunity to point out that these forums are customer forums for customers to help each other: community support. Occasionally Sonos support will engage here, but these forums are not an official support channel for Sonos.

Cheers,

Keith