Time capsule remote backup and remote access

[Tillypup]

A friend had an iMac at home that was backing up to a time capsule on his home network, this was all behind a BT home hub 5. He now has a new iMac, so has decided to move the old one into his shop, which is also using a BT home hub 5 (business edition).

He would like to continue backup up the iMac in the shop to the time capsule at home, but we're having a few problems getting this to work, also he'd like to be able to remotely access the shop iMac from his home one. Here's what I've tried :-

1) Allocate the time capsule a static LAN address.
2) Configure port forwarding on the home BT HH5 to forward the following ports to the time capsule (using the apple support document https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202944) -
80, 443, 500, 548, 1900, 4488, 4500, 5223, 5350, 5351, 5353, 49152-65535
3) Added his iCloud account into the time capsule 'Back to my Mac' settings.
4) Allocate the shop iMac a static LAN address
5) Configure port forwarding on the shop BT HH5 to forward the following ports to the shop iMac -
80, 443, 500, 548, 1900, 4488, 4500, 5223, 5350, 5351, 5353, 49152-65535
6) Setup the shop iMac to use the same iCloud account
7) Setup the shop iMac to enable 'Screen Sharing' and 'Apple Remote Management'

But the shop iMac cannot connect to the home time capsule and the home iMac cannot see the shop iMac.

Has anybody else managed to do this whilst being behind the BT home hub 5 - am I missing something?

 

[ZMacintosh]

You're missing that they're not on the same network/the same path. You have static LAN IP for THAT Network/Subnet at each location, so they wont communicate with each other over the WAN.

Simple solution is to have two separate Time Capsules at each location and replace the current routers in place.


This is doable but requires a lot more understanding and a heftier set up than back to my mac which relies on your connection and pinging the apple servers.

You could try and accomplish this by using OS X server + Static IP at one of the locations (maybe both) + VPN configured + Time Machine configured via Server.

 

[Altemose]

@Tillypup You are going to need to put the HomeHub into Bridge Mode and use the Time Capsule as the router, or at the very least throw the Time Capsule into the DMZ on the HomeHub. Then, on the shop's HomeHub, you would need to open ports 500, 1900, 4488, 4500, 5223, 5350, 5351, and 5353 to the iMac. Alternatively, you could see if the shop HomeHub supports NAT-PMP or uPNP rather than doing all that.

 

[Tillypup]

@Tillypup You are going to need to put the HomeHub into Bridge Mode and use the Time Capsule as the router, or at the very least throw the Time Capsule into the DMZ on the HomeHub. Then, on the shop's HomeHub, you would need to open ports 500, 1900, 4488, 4500, 5223, 5350, 5351, and 5353 to the iMac. Alternatively, you could see if the shop HomeHub supports NAT-PMP or uPNP rather than doing all that.

Thanks Altemos - I was thinking that putting the home hub into bridge mode might be the solution - I'll give that a try first. Since BT merged the fibre modem and router into 1 device, it's become a lot more challenging!

 

[sevoneone]

Great tips above, but I will point out that Time Machine is not going to work via Back to My Mac or VPN right out of the box. Apple is pretty adamant that it is a very bad idea to attempt remote backups in the B2MM documentation: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204618

If your friend wants to backup from work to home, he may want to consider another option like a scheduled FTP/SFTP upload, or a service like Crashplan which lets you setup a backup location on a remote computer in addition to backing up to their servers.

 

[Altemose]

Thanks Altemos - I was thinking that putting the home hub into bridge mode might be the solution - I'll give that a try first. Since BT merged the fibre modem and router into 1 device, it's become a lot more challenging!

Report back with any questions!