[kman42]

I would like to run a vpn on my home desktop so that I can connect from work and listen to my iTunes. I did a search and found quite a few FAQs, but most of them were last updated for 10.2 so I thought I would just ask here for advice.

1) Security? I'm reasonably savvy, but would like some elaboration from the gurus.
2) Best solution? Ease of maintenance, setup?
3) Will it enable me to listen to my fairplay songs from work as if I am on my home LAN?

thanks,
kman

[Ryan Becker]

What about trying one of the several MP3 streaming options? A few of the best are MP3 Sushi, and Nicecast.

I don't know a lot about VPNs, but I don't think you will be able to listen to iTunes that way. I mean, you could start it up and everything, but the sound would play out of your home computer, not the remote computer.

I'm still looking for something as nice as iTunes own sharing ability from 4.2, before people exploited it and made Apple remove it. That was such an awesome sharing feature. Most of the MP3 servers don't allow much control over what you get. What I do is, create a "Jukebox" with MP3 Sushi. But, it doesn't stream AACs, so you have to download them from the jukebox and import them into iTunes. Nicecast simply streams whatever is playing in iTunes, so the only way you could use that is to just have your iTunes playing random tracks, and you listen along to it like a radio station.

Hope that helps a little bit.

-Ryan

[kman42]

Originally posted by Ryan Becker:
What about trying one of the several MP3 streaming options? A few of the best are MP3 Sushi, and Nicecast.

I don't know a lot about VPNs, but I don't think you will be able to listen to iTunes that way. I mean, you could start it up and everything, but the sound would play out of your home computer, not the remote computer.

I'm still looking for something as nice as iTunes own sharing ability from 4.2, before people exploited it and made Apple remove it. That was such an awesome sharing feature. Most of the MP3 servers don't allow much control over what you get. What I do is, create a "Jukebox" with MP3 Sushi. But, it doesn't stream AACs, so you have to download them from the jukebox and import them into iTunes. Nicecast simply streams whatever is playing in iTunes, so the only way you could use that is to just have your iTunes playing random tracks, and you listen along to it like a radio station.

Hope that helps a little bit.

-Ryan

It's my understanding that a VPN just creates a virtual LAN between computers that aren't actually on the same local network.

kman

[Zadian]

Originally posted by kman42:
I would like to run a vpn on my home desktop so that I can connect from work and listen to my iTunes.

1) Security? I'm reasonably savvy, but would like some elaboration from the gurus.
2) Best solution? Ease of maintenance, setup?
3) Will it enable me to listen to my fairplay songs from work as if I am on my home LAN?

Try this thread:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showth...threadid=16937

A PPTP VPN offers a good security, there are better VPN-server like IP/Sec or L2TP but IP/Sec is harder to set up and the L2TP implementation in Panther has some issues with NAT-routers.
So the cheapest way to set up a VPN is to use the vpnd (vpn-server) in Panther and to use PPTP.
If the computer at home doesn't have a static IP-address you will need a dyndns.org account (or something like that).
You should ask the system administrator at work if the ports for VPN are open.

A VPN is just like a lokal LAN over the internet with its own IP-addresses and rendezvous should work over a VPN. I haven't tested it, but it should work.

If you just want to listen to mp3s, you might try the darwin streaming server:
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/ma...de_dotmac.html
(the tutorial uses the quicktime streaming server - it should work with the darwin streaming server).

[kman42]

Originally posted by Zadian:
Try this thread:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showth...threadid=16937

A PPTP VPN offers a good security, there are better VPN-server like IP/Sec or L2TP but IP/Sec is harder to set up and the L2TP implementation in Panther has some issues with NAT-routers.
So the cheapest way to set up a VPN is to use the vpnd (vpn-server) in Panther and to use PPTP.
If the computer at home doesn't have a static IP-address you will need a dyndns.org account (or something like that).
You should ask the system administrator at work if the ports for VPN are open.

A VPN is just like a lokal LAN over the internet with its own IP-addresses and rendezvous should work over a VPN. I haven't tested it, but it should work.

If you just want to listen to mp3s, you might try the darwin streaming server:
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/ma...de_dotmac.html
(the tutorial uses the quicktime streaming server - it should work with the darwin streaming server).

Thanks for the link, but I found that thread to be increadibly convoluted. It seems the participants were attempting to set up an L2TP vpn and some were successful and others were not. Are there any other tutorials available? This seems like something that would be fairly common...

I thought about QTSS, but I don't think it will allow protected AAC files to be shared. That was the reason for wanting to use a vpn was to make it appear as a LAN so that I could listen to the music I've purchased from iTMS without having to clutter my PB with it.

kman

[itai195]

Well I know it's not what you asked, but wouldn't just buying an iPod be the easiest way around this problem?

[Brass]

Originally posted by itai195:
Well I know it's not what you asked, but wouldn't just buying an iPod be the easiest way around this problem?

yeah, but a few hundred dollars more expensive!

[kman42]

It's the principle of the thing. My Mac can do anything!!!!