Excuse me while I die of shame.
April 23, 2010 8:10 AM Subscribe
I'mEmbarrassedIDon'tKnowThisFilter: How do remote torrent client managers work?
I consider myself really tech-saavy, but I feel like I'm missing something here. I use Transmission for totally legal torrents. Just the other day, I installed Transdroid on my G1 just to see how it worked. Neato, I can remotely add/stop/pause torrents. Cool.
But my question is (whew, this is really embarrassing to ask, I can't even tell you guys how bad this feels,) how does Transdroid know to connect to my Transmission client? So, I put in my laptop's address, which would be 192.168.1.4 and the correct port number. Here's the confusion, though. I thought 192.168.1.1 was a standard/default IP for all kinds of routers (Linksys, Verizon's FiOS modem, etc) so what information am I giving Transdroid specifically that tells it to go to my computer and not someone else's?
This is all assuming, of course, that 192.168.1.1 (and, hence, the networked devices i.e. -.2, -.3, -.4) is a common IP. Which the internet seems to agree it is. If this is true, then certainly someone else in the world has a few devices on his/her home network and one of them would be 192.168.1.4.
And in any case, even if that's just the local IP that my home network uses to refer to itself, than how does Transdroid know my router's IP number that the internet sees?
Halp?
I consider myself really tech-saavy, but I feel like I'm missing something here. I use Transmission for totally legal torrents. Just the other day, I installed Transdroid on my G1 just to see how it worked. Neato, I can remotely add/stop/pause torrents. Cool.
But my question is (whew, this is really embarrassing to ask, I can't even tell you guys how bad this feels,) how does Transdroid know to connect to my Transmission client? So, I put in my laptop's address, which would be 192.168.1.4 and the correct port number. Here's the confusion, though. I thought 192.168.1.1 was a standard/default IP for all kinds of routers (Linksys, Verizon's FiOS modem, etc) so what information am I giving Transdroid specifically that tells it to go to my computer and not someone else's?
This is all assuming, of course, that 192.168.1.1 (and, hence, the networked devices i.e. -.2, -.3, -.4) is a common IP. Which the internet seems to agree it is. If this is true, then certainly someone else in the world has a few devices on his/her home network and one of them would be 192.168.1.4.
And in any case, even if that's just the local IP that my home network uses to refer to itself, than how does Transdroid know my router's IP number that the internet sees?
Halp?
Best answer: I thought 192.168.1.1 was a standard/default IP for all kinds of routers (Linksys, Verizon's FiOS modem, etc) so what information am I giving Transdroid specifically that tells it to go to my computer and not someone else's?
The reason that routers use that address and assign IP addresses in the same range is that the 192.168.*.* address range is specifically designated for private network addresses, not public Internet addresses. Since nobody can have a public Internet IP of 192.168.1.4, there is no potential conflict and the router can safely connect to a machine on your internal network.
That's also why someone else on the Internet can't try to connect to 192.168.1.4 and connect to you, because to the outside world your router only has one IP address and they don't see your LAN. Which is why port forwarding needs to happen if someone wants to connect to a specific machine on your LAN from the Internet.
posted by burnmp3s at 8:27 AM on April 23, 2010
The reason that routers use that address and assign IP addresses in the same range is that the 192.168.*.* address range is specifically designated for private network addresses, not public Internet addresses. Since nobody can have a public Internet IP of 192.168.1.4, there is no potential conflict and the router can safely connect to a machine on your internal network.
That's also why someone else on the Internet can't try to connect to 192.168.1.4 and connect to you, because to the outside world your router only has one IP address and they don't see your LAN. Which is why port forwarding needs to happen if someone wants to connect to a specific machine on your LAN from the Internet.
posted by burnmp3s at 8:27 AM on April 23, 2010
Response by poster: Yes. Yes I have. I am a complete idiot. I didn't even think about that.
Obvious.
posted by InsanePenguin at 8:28 AM on April 23, 2010
Obvious.
posted by InsanePenguin at 8:28 AM on April 23, 2010
Best answer: If I understand your question...
Basically:
Your router hooks up to the internet on one side, with some sort of "real" IP address assigned by your ISP. On the other side of the router it creates a little network within your house. It'll hand out IP addresses to all the devices in your house, and they'll be of the form 192.168.x.x (depending on the brand of router). There aren't enough real IP addresses for all the computers in the world, so most places your computer will be using one of these local networks. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_address_translation)
When a computer in your home network asks to talk to a 192.168.x.x address, the router keeps that conversation internal to your network. When it asks to talk to an address outside that range (say, 71.12.23.28) the router sends that message out to the broader internet, 'cause it doesn't have the foggiest idea where that IP address lives.
So, if you're on your home network and ask to talk to that 192.168.1.4 address, your phone is able to successfully connect to your transmission client. If you're _not_ at home when you ask to connect to that address, you'll get bupkiss unless the software is doing something much trickier behind the scenes to maintain a bit of a footprint at your house.
posted by paanta at 8:28 AM on April 23, 2010
Basically:
Your router hooks up to the internet on one side, with some sort of "real" IP address assigned by your ISP. On the other side of the router it creates a little network within your house. It'll hand out IP addresses to all the devices in your house, and they'll be of the form 192.168.x.x (depending on the brand of router). There aren't enough real IP addresses for all the computers in the world, so most places your computer will be using one of these local networks. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_address_translation)
When a computer in your home network asks to talk to a 192.168.x.x address, the router keeps that conversation internal to your network. When it asks to talk to an address outside that range (say, 71.12.23.28) the router sends that message out to the broader internet, 'cause it doesn't have the foggiest idea where that IP address lives.
So, if you're on your home network and ask to talk to that 192.168.1.4 address, your phone is able to successfully connect to your transmission client. If you're _not_ at home when you ask to connect to that address, you'll get bupkiss unless the software is doing something much trickier behind the scenes to maintain a bit of a footprint at your house.
posted by paanta at 8:28 AM on April 23, 2010
Response by poster: I can't believe I didn't think about this; it was staring me in the face. Seriously, I spent the last hour trying to figure it out.
Of course, I have a laptop, so it's at home in sleep mode right now, so obviously I wouldn't get a connection from Transdroid so I didn't bother. Perhaps if I had left it open and tried, it would have sparked my brain and I would have figured it out. Anyways, thanks everyone, hope you don't think I'm a total newb now.
posted by InsanePenguin at 8:32 AM on April 23, 2010
Of course, I have a laptop, so it's at home in sleep mode right now, so obviously I wouldn't get a connection from Transdroid so I didn't bother. Perhaps if I had left it open and tried, it would have sparked my brain and I would have figured it out. Anyways, thanks everyone, hope you don't think I'm a total newb now.
posted by InsanePenguin at 8:32 AM on April 23, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by pocams at 8:23 AM on April 23, 2010