The reason why the standard Windows VPN will not support sharing your itunes library is because the library sharing service requires apple's Bonjour service to broadcast the library. Unfortunately, Windows VPN does not support the broadcast of this Bonjour service.
I am going to explain how to do this with the software i used, i'm sure there is other vpn host/client tools out there that can do the same thing.
Things you will need:
- Hamachi Logmein (An account is optional, however, i recommend an account for the host. It's free.)
- Port Forwarding Knowledge (for some home ISP providers).
- Latest version of iTunes helps (if your going to share itunes libraries)
Creating your VPN the Hamachi way
First, your going to need to download the Hamachi Logmein Client. Download the unmanaged version and install it on your machine. Link is provided:
Once completed through the setup process, the Hamachi Logmein interface should appear. At this point, your going to need to click the power button on the interface and let it load up. It will ask you if you want to join an existing network, or create a new one; we are going to create a new network. When creating a new network, you will be prompted to input a Network ID, and Password. The network ID is up to you, you can create a network with your own personalized name (assuming that no one else has taken that name), and simply enter a password for your network id. At this point, your done creating your network. IF you created a Logmein account, you can at anytime link this to your Hamachi Logmein client by going to System > Attach a Logmein account. I myself am hosting a Hamachi network with an account attached, and i find this very useful because having the account allows you to have the flexibility of managing your vpn network via web browser, not to mention more secure ways to protect your network from "random" people joining.
Sharing your Hamachi VPN network
There is two different ways to share your vpn network, it really depends on if you have an account or not. If you do not have a logmein account attached to your vpn network, then you will need to give the person your customized vpn name and the password you set for it. If you do have an account attached to your hamachi vpn, you will need to give the person whom is joining your numeric id for your vpn. To find your numeric id, you will need to login to your account (via https://secure.logmein.com/). When you are logged in, look on the left side menu and click the two side by side box things (Ethernet like symbol more specifically), drop down its menu and click the sub menu for "my network". Once on that page, look for your custom network name and hover your mouse horizontally to the right until you find the edit menu for it and click it. On the next screen is where you will find the numeric id for your network, that is the number you need to give to your clients wanting to join your network.
Configuring iTunes
Probably the most easiest step in the process (if not already done), all you have to do is open itunes, find your preference menu, click on the sharing tab. You will to make sure these boxes are checked:
- Share my library on my local network
- Share my entire library
- Home sharing computers and devices update play counts
That is it. In order to have itunes library sharing work, every client on the network needs to have the settings above checked, and itunes actively running. You can find the shared libraries listed in the sidebar; If you have itunes 11+ and have no sidebar, please refer to one of my earlier blogs, i specifically address this issue of having no sidebar.
Port Forwarding iTunes Share Port
This step isn't always necessary, but sometimes you may run into the case where the library being shared over the VPN isn't working properly. Some of these symptoms may be not loading, or randomly 'disappearing' off of the shared list. I have been aware of this and did some troubleshooting, only to conclude that IF this is happening, you need to log into your router and forward port 3689 tcp/udp to the machine that is sharing the itunes library. This is more and a 50% thing, i personally have seen no consistency to when this step is necessary or not. Originally, i thought it could be tied to the ISP, but that hypothesis was proven wrong since my home and work place both use the same ISP; my home networked needed this port to be forwarded to my machine, but at work, no ports are being forwarded whatsoever.
IF you do in fact have to (or just want to) forward port 3689 tcp/udp to your machine, i highly recommend reserving a FIXED internal ip address for your machine on the router side before forwarding the port (assuming your router is a DHCP server). This can be done through the LAN settings area of your router, it should be titled something along the lines of "address reservation" or "DHCP Static Lease" (maybe).
Things you are going to NEED if you have to use this section:
- Your Routers internal IPv4 address to get to its interface
- Router's Username and Password to log in to its interface
You can get the routers IPv4 address by doing the following:
- Start Menu > Run (or use the keyboard shortcut WinKey+R)
- Type in CMD and press enter
- In the dos box, type "ipconfig" and press enter. A list should appear, scroll up until you find your Local Area Connection. The number you are looking for is the "default gateway" a.k.a. the routers IPv4 address
If you reserve an address for your machine, you will need to refresh your network connection by doing the following:
- Start Menu > Run (or use the keyboard shortcut WinKey+R)
- Type in CMD and press enter.
- In the dos box, type these two commands (in order): "ipconfig /release" then "ipconfig /renew"
- Done
Refer to this article for more info: http://lifehacker.com/5822605/how-to-set-up-dhcp-reservations-so-you-never-have-to-check-an-ip-address-again
To forward the port, you will need to look for a section in your router that says "port forwarding" (every router is different). Go into the Port forwarding section and click whatever your router says about "adding" a port forward (once again, every router is different. mine says "add custom service"). Fill in the blank spots to add the port, here is the basics of what you need:
- service type: tcp/udp
- name: whatever you want (i named mine iTunes Share)
- starting port: 3689
- ending port: 3689
- internal ip address: the IP address of your machine.
Once done with this, you should be good to go (phew, that's a lot of work.....).
Enjoy :)
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