Access My Media from a device on the internet / outside your network

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bizmodeller
Posts: 458
Joined: Thu Nov 14, 2013 8:40 pm

Access My Media from a device on the internet / outside your network

Post by bizmodeller »

By default, My Media only allows devices on your local network access to stream your media. This means your Alexa device must be on the same network as the computer running the My Media server app.

However, advanced users can configure My Media to accept requests from the internet. For example, you could use a mobile phone running the Alexa app to stream your media whilst you are in the car!

There are two ways of doing this.

Option 1. Firewall / NAT Mode

My Media streams media on TCP port 52050. To allow Alexa devices outside your network to connect back to your server, you will need to open port 52050 on your internet connected modem/router and set up a port forwarding rule from your internet IP (from TCP 52050) to the IP address of the computer running My Media (to TCP port 52050). Note you should also configure a static IP address for the computer running My Media, otherwise the port forwarding rule you set up will stop working if your computer changes IP.

You also need to enable remote access within the My Media web interface by choosing the 'Enable via Firewall NAT' option in the 'Enable access outside of local network' setting. This is available on the Settings tab of the My Media web console:

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In this mode, when you request media from an internet connected Alexa device, it will connect directly over the internet to your server and stream the media.

Option 2. Push Mode

If you don't want to open your firewall up, you can alternatively use the 'Push' model. This mode is easier to set up, however, your media will be temporarily uploaded to our My Media cloud servers. In this mode, when you request media from an internet connected Alexa device, it is streamed from your server to our cloud servers, and then your Alexa devices will stream it from our servers. We will store the media temporarily for up to 24 hours before deleting it.

To configure this, you need to enable remote access within the My Media web interface by choosing the 'Enable via Push' option in the 'Enable access outside of local network' setting. This is available on the Settings tab of the My Media web console. No other firewall changes are necessary.

Access to the My Media web console remotely

You can optionally set up access to the My Media web console remotely. This is served on TCP port 52051 and would require a second TCP port forwarding rule (i.e. it's only available via a firewall NAT rule). If you do this, we STRONGLY advise setting up a password on the My Media web interface to avoid anonymous access to your server. You can do this in the Settings tab of the My Media web console. Once configured, you would access the My Media web console by using the url http://your_public_ip:52051 from the internet.
David
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Jun 15, 2019 4:11 pm

Re: Access My Media from a device on the internet / outside your network

Post by David »

I've successfully configured myMedia so that my server at home is sending music tracks to my echo dot at my father's house via port 52050 on my Virginmedia hub and setting "Enable via Firewall NAT" in the myMedia settings. However, despite opening up port 52051 in the same way, I cannot sit at my father's house and access the myMedia UI on my home PC by entering the public ip + ":52051" in the browser. MS Edge just says "I'm sorry I can't reach this page". When I'm at home , I can access the UI on any of our other pc's or laptops via the local address, it's just not working using the public IP. I've double checked several times that my ip address is still correct. What could I be doing wrong :?:
bizmodeller
Posts: 458
Joined: Thu Nov 14, 2013 8:40 pm

Re: Access My Media from a device on the internet / outside your network

Post by bizmodeller »

We don't expose the My Media User Interface over port 52051; only music streaming. This provides additional security as the administrative controls aren't exposed. However, accessing media via Alexa should work from your father's home. Is this not the case?
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