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Port Forwarding
If you are streaming from behind a router, to preserve a reasonable level of security while allowing outside computers to connect to your system you will need to ‘port forward’ your router.
Port forwarding permits a sort of ‘blind hand-off’ between external clients (your viewers) and a local transaction port which you manually specify. (The router will pass requests to view the stream through to the TriCaster, without exposing the internal IP routing.)
To enable port forwarding, you need three pieces of information:
The login information for the router. Your router’s manual will have this information, which typically involves entering a specific IP number into your
web browsers URL field, and perhaps also a password you have set previously.
The specific IP local number that the router has assigned to your TriCaster. You can read this right from TriCaster’s Location display. It will comprise the entire string of punctuated numbers before the colon (the colon separates the port number you chose for your stream).
The port number just mentioned (the part after the colon).
Although the steps vary a bit by brand and model, generally you would proceed as follows:
1. Log into the router, so it shows its control panel in your web browser.
2. Select the port forwarding page of the router controls. These options may be found in an obscure place, such as the router’s “Applications and Gaming” page (since online gaming often requires port forwarding).
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3. Enter an Application name, if required (this is for your own recognition purposes, so use anything you like).
4. Enter the Start and End port values – you can use the same port number in both fields, but of course it must be the one you set in TriCaster’s Port field.
5. IF possible, select Both for Protocol (or select UDP).
6. Enter the full (punctuated numeric) local IP address shown in the Location
field of your TriCaster after you enable the stream.
7. Checkmark Enable.
Some routers may have other security settings that need to be modified for your Pull stream to be visible from the outside. For example, the Linksys® router shown above has a setting in the Security page named Block Anonymous Internet Requests. While this may be a great idea normally, it’s not going to help much when outside computers request that your system permit them to Pull the video stream, is it?
There are countless makes and models of routers – for information on various models, and a great deal of help on port forwarding generally, we can recommend the following site:
http://www.portforward.com/english/routers/port_forwarding/routerindex.htm