Configuring the WiFi Servo Controller for use over the Internet
It is often necessary to gain control of the WiFi Servo Controller over the Internet. This guide will provide a tutorial for a typical setup. A high speed Internet connection such as cable or DSL is required for this tutorial. A router is also required.
Both wired and wireless connection methods can be utilized for this tutorial but it is recommended to start with a wired connection.
To get started make sure your WiFi Servo Controller is attached to your network and an IP address has been assigned. Take note of this IP address.
Connection Diagram
Routers
In this guide a router is referred to in many places. What this guide considers a router is the typical WiFi/Switch/Router/Firewall device most commonly sold in stores today and what you most likely will find in your own network. Netgear, LinkSys and D-Link are some of the most popular brands. These devices are great for home networks because they consolidate the necessary hardware into a single package and are easy to setup via a central configuration page. This configuration page can often be accessed by pointing your browser to the routers IP address. Open a browser and go to this page now. Often this address will be 192.168.1.1 however consult your manual for the exact address. Once displayed various options should be displayed for the router, look for a section on "port forwarding".
Port forwarding
To understand port forwarding first we need to discuss how home networks are usually set up. Typically a home network is setup as a private network. When you subscribe to an ISP they provide you with a single address and line of access to the WAN or Internet. These services often include a modem of some type. If you wanted you could connect the modem directly to a PC however this would limit access to a single computer. Attaching a router to the modem and the computer to the router will allow for many devices to share a single IP address on the WAN however these devices will have unique address on the LAN. To the outside WAN network it looks like all traffic is coming from one address although may be coming from multiple addresses. When traffic is going from the LAN to the WNA or from the LAN to another device on the LAN there are no issues since there are no shared addresses. However when traffic needs to go from the WAN to the LAN a mechanism to distinguish what device the traffic is meant for is needed. This is where port forwarding comes in.
Port forwarding is a method of allowing packets arriving on a particular port to be sent to a specific device on a private network.In the port forwarding configuration two things must be specified; port and IP address. The primary port has an address of 10001, enter this in the configuration. The next thing to setup is the IP address. This is the IP address currently assigned to the WiFi Servo Controller on the local network. These two settings together basically tell the router to forward any packets arriving on port 10001 to the specified IP address. If you wish to use the secondary port on the WiFi Servo Controller also repeat the steps above however point to port 10002.It has been observed that some home routers do not like forwarding ports 10001 and 10002. If you have made sure to set everything up correctly but still cannot get connected try changing the port to a smaller one like 81 and 82 for example.
Accessing Remotely
Accessing the controller remotely is very similar to accessing it on a local network. Let’s say that the controller is setup at site A while you are at site B. Assuming that at site B a PC has been connected to the network, start either the sample COM port or TCP/IP software or open a web browser to access the Java applet page. Either method is up to you, see the setup guide on how to configure the COM port method.
Now the only difference in accessing the remote WiFi Servo Controller is that we must point the software to the WAN IP of site A instead of the LAN address at site A.
