Getting a slingbox to work behind a firewall…

[KeydGV21]

I’ve searched the forums and seen general slingbox questions but none about this, if it belongs in one of them I apologize…

I’m going off to school in the fall and want to be able to use my slingbox but the residence halls have a firewall. Is there any way around this firewall besides going out and getting a Verizon wireless PC card? I’m pretty sure the student union has no firewall, which would be practical for shows that I TIVO but not so much for watching Center Ice or Sunday Ticket…Thanks in advance for any help.

[OurGocIsAnAwesomeGoc]

Originally Posted by KeydGV21

I’ve searched the forums and seen general slingbox questions but none about this, if it belongs in one of them I apologize…

I’m going off to school in the fall and want to be able to use my slingbox but the residence halls have a firewall. Is there any way around this firewall besides going out and getting a Verizon wireless PC card? I’m pretty sure the student union has no firewall, which would be practical for shows that I TIVO but not so much for watching Center Ice or Sunday Ticket…Thanks in advance for any help.

Not unless you can convince the school's network admin to creating an exception for whatever port slingbox uses in the firewall, which I would say you'd have slim to no chance of doing.

[john g]

actually it depends -- does the firewall block the slingbox port outbound (your dorm pc's "get" stream from your home) or the slingbox port inbound (the "send" stream from home to your dorm)

there is a way to do it -- if the slingbox's app on your dorm PC can be changed to search for the slingbox connection on a different port besides the default.

it would take some really saavy work though. if it is blocking "gets" it is snap if the slingbox app can be fixed. if it is blocking the "send" or "both" it is a little hardware

[OurGocIsAnAwesomeGoc]

Originally Posted by john g

actually it depends -- does the firewall block the slingbox port outbound (your dorm pc's "get" stream from your home) or the slingbox port inbound (the "send" stream from home to your dorm)

there is a way to do it -- if the slingbox's app on your dorm PC can be changed to search for the slingbox connection on a different port besides the default.

it would take some really saavy work though. if it is blocking "gets" it is snap if the slingbox app can be fixed. if it is blocking the "send" or "both" it is a little hardware

Is slingbox configurable to use a different port? I know some P2P programs, things of that nature, have a default port...but allow the user to select any open port. Maybe he could "borrow" a port that the school allows...or is that what you're suggesting?

[john g]

yeah I was thinking that you should be able to mimic how you tunnel VNC/pcAnywhere over SSH. the destination in that case requires an SSH compliant device or software. i dont know anything about the slingplayer but the theory is the same. on the VNC/pcanywhere tunnel you don't have to config anything on the destination side except allow tunneling but you do have to on the client initiating side.

if you can port 5001 (looks like slingbox's port) through SSH (22) out from the client side using something like cygwin you should get be able to get through but the home side will require some more work

i'll think about when mowing the lawn today, that'll be a good 1-2 hours of free time

[Puck]

I've never done it but I think you can stream live using the Windows Media Encoder and maybe even the VLC Lan Player. You'd have to have your kid brother at home, with a PC and Tv capture card, and you can't change channels remote, it would have to be set up at source. The picture might not be the same quality as a slingbox and you wouldn't have the same features, but the signal format wouldn't be slingbox format and it would probably be accepted and allowed through the college firewall (asx or wmv). If it works, don't tell everybody, because if server traffic increases with everyone getting into the act, they'll cut that out too. But I still think if you want easy access, the wireless + slingbox is probably the way to go with less hassles.

[KeydGV21]

Originally Posted by john g

actually it depends -- does the firewall block the slingbox port outbound (your dorm pc's "get" stream from your home) or the slingbox port inbound (the "send" stream from home to your dorm)

there is a way to do it -- if the slingbox's app on your dorm PC can be changed to search for the slingbox connection on a different port besides the default.

it would take some really saavy work though. if it is blocking "gets" it is snap if the slingbox app can be fixed. if it is blocking the "send" or "both" it is a little hardware

Thanks for all the answers...

I'm not sure why it gets blocked, I just know that they've told us that the dorms have a firewall on them. I assume not knowing what exactly the issue is I'll be unable to do anything about it until I get there though?

[john g]

yeah without them giving you a blantant list -- which they'll never do -- you won't be able to tell until you do get there

[Puck]

http://www.techenclave.com/forums/gu...-lan-2608.html
http://tv.isg.si/site/videolan_tutor...tv_to_internet
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/archi...r-t225049.html
http://forum.videohelp.com/topic225049.html

[Hip Of Rick]

i was in dorms at school last year and the slingbox worked perfectly fine. i would try it out first and see what happens

[Panthers_Fan]

I just bought one today for my dorm next year for Panther games, and I didn't even think about them possibly blocking it. Hopefully, it works when I get there in a few weeks.