And finally it came! My LG N2B1 with 2x1TB drives. Wonderful piece of gadget in great design. I unpacked it quickly and turned it on. Everything went smooth, though the drives weren't formatted and partitioned when it arrived, but that was easily done through the Web Menu. Also, this is not what this post is about!
One of the cool things LG gives their customers is a DDNS service. They offer you a domain - your_name.lgnas.com - so you can access your NAS not just locally but globally. Just as cool as this sounds as much a pain in the ass it can be to set it up. It took me hours of googling and twice as many hours taking care of my head-aches. My problems were mostly related to port-forwarding, and therefore the guide will cover that primarily. So, here is a small guide that can hopefully help some. I can recommend canyouseeme.org while testing.
Connect to the NAS and enable DDNS. A pretty obvious step. Log into the web menu of your NAS, go to "Remote access" and enable DDNS. Here you must also choose a domain name (make it cool!) and password. Clicking enable should initiate a process, this takes a little while. After it has been enabled your (external) IP-address should be revealed. Copy this to clipboard.
Basically, you can just try to see if it works now. Open a browser and paste the IP into the address-line or type your_name.lgnas.com. Both probably gives you errors, right? If yes, read on. If no, damn, you're a lucky bastard!
So, what's the hold-up? Your connection is being blocked! We need to open up some ports by port-forwarding. This process requires changing some settings in the router, so let's go there now. In a browser type 192.168.1.1 or whatever your router's IP is. Go to port-forwarding - it's located different on different routers. On my Linksys router (WRT160N) it's a tab called "Applications and gaming".
Let's port-forward! We're gonna do 4 different ports: 21 (FTP), 80 (WEB), 9090 (FileView) and 9091 (Torrent). For each, choose a name, enter the port in both external/internal, choose both (UDP+TCP). The IP-address is the address of the NAS. Now, enable them.
Does it work now? Check the browser by entering either your external IP from before or the domain-name. If it works, hurray! If not, read on. We'll get there soon!
Basically, it should work by doing the above, given you've done everything right. So what NOW is the problem? It can be one of three. Either 1) your ISP is blocking the ports for security reasons. If you think this is the case, you must contact them and have them open the ports and can stop reading on OR 2) there is another router in your network! OR 3) Both.
Option 2 was of course my issue. I had not realized that my modem also worked as a router! My setup is a ZyXeL modem/router (wired) to a Linksys WRT160N (wireless) router. My problem was therefore, that the requests never got through to the Linksys and obviously could not forward the ports to the NAS! So basic, but yet so easy to miss. What to do is this.
Open a browser and access your OTHER router. In my case the IP was 10.0.0.1. You will be prompted for a password. Default on ZyXeL is 1234, but a much longer password had been set by my ISP (Cybercity), so I had to retrieve it from a piece of paper hidden away in a very dusty box. Anyways, when you've gotten access to the router, we must do another port-forward, so go there. Now, forward ALL ports (1-64000) to your other router. This is done by doing a port-forward range, 1 as start and 64000 as end. Now, the important thing this is getting the IP correct for the router. It is NOT 192.168... Instead, it will most likely be 10.0.0.2 or similar. Enable the port-forwarding.
Let's check the domain once again. Does it work? I really hope so, since there are no more steps in this guide. Have fun with your remote accessible NAS :)
February 16th, 2010 - 18:12
Thank you so much!!!
I followed you guide step by step, and after 5 minutes it worked perfectly.. It couldn’t be easier. What annoys me is that I didn’t think of it myself :)
February 18th, 2010 - 00:05
I’m glad I could help!
February 23rd, 2010 - 16:21
Thank you – really helpful.
Any idea how I can setup the iTunes function so I can sync both the LG Nas server service and also the music folder on my iMac ?
It really annoys me that I can’t let them talk together.
Right now I transfer music to the LG Nas and my iTunes is setup in advanced settings to my iMac. Then I can add new files from the nas and the iMac will automaticly make a new folder with the new band, muic number ect.
But the NAS still only have the new music item as a file and won’t organize by artitis, album and so on.
I guess I could change the advanced setting in iTunes to be LG Nas – service – iTunes – music…
But then the opposite problem occours and the iMac won’t make the automatic settings of the new music items.
Best Regards
Claus
February 25th, 2010 - 13:02
Hey Claus
I’m not quite sure I follow. Do you have all the music on the NAS? I suppose that would be the easiest – just to have everything in the iTunes server folder on the NAS.
I had everything on the NAS for a while, but ultimately got too annoyed by the sudden lags and delayed starts due to the nas either working or waking up from sleep.
/Johan
March 8th, 2010 - 20:32
Hej Claus
Et mega stort MANGE TAK
/Anakin
March 14th, 2010 - 19:50
Thanks for the answer.It worked for me.
March 25th, 2010 - 19:23
Still doesn’t work for me on my Buffalow Air Station.
Set all port forwarding as you said but going to port 80 sends me to my routers setup not the nas…
Port 9091 is still closed according to open port check tool
Port 9090 is open according to open port check tool but times out when I try and access through the browser
Its only port 21, ftp, which works (and Port 8081 this is for SABNZBD)
Any ideas?
March 26th, 2010 - 20:17
Rich,
Just to make sure – are you connecting with the right IP-address? I don’t see why it would send you to the routers setup…
However, since one of your ports are working, the others might be blocked by your ISP. Timeout on 9090 usually indicates a port-forwarding problem I believe.
All in all: I can’t help you much I’m afraid :(
/Johan
May 18th, 2010 - 05:30
Thanks, this was very helpful. The only catch for me was that I didn’t realize everything was working correctly because I kept getting a connection timed out error when I entered the domain or external IP in my browser. Any ideas? Fortunately I was able to test remote access using my iphone with wifi off.
May 22nd, 2010 - 18:21
Erin,
I’m not quite sure I understand your question. Would you care to elaborate? Is it working or not? Are you still getting time-out errors?
/Johan
June 10th, 2010 - 07:58
What if Port 80 is in use by something else. Is there a way to use some other port besides 80?? Thanks!
June 10th, 2010 - 13:24
Gene,
I’m afraid I can’t help you there. I did a quick Google search and it appears to be impossible! That really surprises me – there must be thousands of people with the same issue as you. You can look at this post for instance: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/1285173.html
I hope you can find some solution that I’ve been unabled to find! :(
/Johan
June 10th, 2010 - 18:05
Thanks Johan. You at least got me going with the LG NAS, something I couldn’t manage on my own. The other device wanting port 80 (a marine aquarium controller!) lets you specifiy ports but for whatever reason isn’t accessible when you set something other than 80! I’ll eventually figure it out. Thanks again, and be well.
Gene
June 11th, 2010 - 16:23
This was so valuable information, thanx a billion. You gotta love the internet :-)
June 12th, 2010 - 12:11
Good luck with it, Gene! And your welcome :)
June 13th, 2010 - 23:32
Hey Johan,
Am so lost. My internet comes in to my Apple Time Capsule who transmits a wireless connection. But a cat6 cable connects it to a Apple Airport Exreme, who is bridged and transmits the same wireless connection (tried extending, but only works for wireless and not wired). And there’s an regular Apple airport in the bedroom, but that has no effect on my current problem.
The LG NAS is connected to the Aiport Extreme, because it is bridged I added the portmapping on the Time Capsule only for 21 and 80. But this still has no effect for the DDNS to work.
Hope you can help me, thanks!
/Xel
June 14th, 2010 - 01:31
Hi Xelation,
So are you forwarding the ports (21 and 80) from the Time Capsule to your NAS or to the Airport Extreme? Do you know which device gives you your ip-address – the airport or the time capsule?
Is your Time Capsule directly connected to the internet (the plug in the wall) or is there a modem/another device before your Time Capsule?
/Johan
June 28th, 2010 - 21:49
Hi
this was helpful, but wene i enter the domain name i set or the ip address it takes me to my router page and not the lg nas page ??
any ideas ?
thanks all.
July 14th, 2010 - 07:31
perfect.
thanks!