[Ham-Mac] EchoMac Success Story! (DSL via a D-Link Router to G4 with OSX 10.4.7)

[Steve Hellyer]

All very good info here from Dick and Jim.

Jim mentions a very key item! You MUST keep the same TCP/IP address  
so the router will always forward to your Mac running EchoMac.
My suggestion is to use manual TCP/IP address for your Macintosh  
rather than DHCP if your have more than one computer sharing this  
internet access at your location.

IF your using manual addressing try 192.168.1.201 which is usually  
out of the range all home DSL/Cable modem routers use for DHCP (The  
service that dynamically gives out TCP addresses to you).

So it my house the Airport base station is my DSL router and dishes  
out 192.168.1.2 through 192.168.1.100.
Only one computer runs Echomac so I set it up as manual addressing.   
Looks like this in Mac OS X:

TCP address: 192.168.1.201
Subnet: 255.255.255.0
Router: 192.168.1.1 (address of your router)
DNS: 192.168.1.1 (again address of your router)

The router is then configured to forward ports  5198, 5199, 5200 to  
192.168.1.201.  The router continue to dish out DHCP to other  
computer at my location just that my computer has a fix address now.

What happen is I don't use Manual (Static) addressing?
If your are using DHCP on your Mac and another computer in your house  
(Mac, PC, UNIX) gets your address 192.168.1.2 (and it might... that's  
why they call it Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) then your  
Echomac or Echolink will not work. That until the other computer  
release the address and you obtain it back. (Typically 8-12 hours for  
must DHCP server by default) If your EchoMac connection work  
sometimes only then likely this is what is going on.

Important to understand that your DSL/cable modem router (also known  
as a NAT gateway) is taking the place of your computer for direct  
communication to internet.  Bonus of this is it makes for a great  
firewall on inbound traffic and you can share your single Internet  
access with quite a number of computers at your location.

Problems is when an unsolicited packet (incoming call from Echolink  
for example) comes in from another station. You have to tell the  
router not only the ports to allow forwarding but also the fixed TCP/ 
IP address. The later is NOT dynamic.  This is why you can't have two  
computers of any kind sharing Echolink with this method.  Example  
might be both you and your spouse want to use Echolink independently  
on two different computers via your home INternet.  This is not going  
to work.

What if your if your router doesn't use 192.168.X.X by default but  
rather 10.X.X.X address?

Don't worry it works the same way. 192.168.X.X and 10.X.X.X are both  
reserved for this purpose.

For example if your router is at 10.1.2.1 then your settings would be:

TCP address: 10.1.2.201
Subnet: 255.255.255.0
Router: 10.1.2.1 (address of your router)
DNS: 10.1.2.1 (again address of your router)

And you would tell router router forward TCP & UDP port 5198, 5199,  
5200 to TCP address 10.1.2.201.
(Strickly speaking you don't need all of these ports forwarded on TCP  
and UDP but it make life simpler.)

Here is a a more detailed explanation on NAT Gateways (Aka DSL/Cable  
modem routers) with pictures.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~csev/hng/book/05netsharing/index.htm

If your playing around with Echolink/EchoMac or even wanting to have  
a Web or FTP server on your computer it a good idea to get an  
understand on how this really works!

73
Steve
VA3SPH

On 11-Sep-06, at 12:59 PM, Jim Tittsler wrote:

> On 2006-09-11 23:32, Dick Kriss wrote:
>> First, I want to say thanks to all that responded to my requests  
>> for help.
>> the winning tip goes to Tim McLeod, VE3TZS.  He broke the code on  
>> my deaf
>> and dumb setup.
>>
>>> On 9/10/06 4:41 PM, "Tim McLeod" <ve3tzs at mac.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I had trouble getting EchoLink to work on a Dlink router using the
>>> configuration you listed.  Use the Virtual Server settings to  
>>> forward the
>>> three ports required to the IP address of the machine.
>>
>> Heads Up: The information on the EchoLink web page at
>> http://www.echolink.org/firewall_solutions.htm for D-Link routers  
>> including
>> the link to a screenshot may work for a PC's but it is WRONG  
>> (really wrong)
>> for a Macintosh D-Link users.
>
> I disagree.  There is no networking difference between EchoLink on the
> PC and EchoMac on Macs.  It does suggest there is a problem with the
> firmware version in your router (as it hints in step 1 :-).  But Tim's
> suggestion is a good one as long as you note his caveat that it will
> only work with a single computer on your LAN (and as long as that
> computer's IP address doesn't change).
>
> Glad you got it going.
>
> 73, Jim
>
>
> -- 
> Jim Tittsler  7J1AJH/AI8A  Tokyo                     GPG: 0x01159DB6
> http://www.qsl.net/7j1ajh/                       QRP/Satellites/APRS
>                                                          AMSAT/NZART
>
>
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