# Mini over VPN



## David B Gregory (Feb 26, 2018)

Has anyone set up a vpn between two locations to utilize a mini over the vpn to a bolt.
I have never had luck using the streaming service, especially watching football games. It would be nice to utilize the cable i pay for when gone for the summer


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

I think some users have set up a VPN for transferring shows but not sure if I recall reading about anyone trying to do this for a Mini. What's the Internet upload bandwidth where you have the Bolt and the download bandwidth where you would have the Mini?

Scott


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

David B Gregory said:


> Has anyone set up a vpn between two locations to utilize a mini over the vpn to a bolt.
> I have never had luck using the streaming service, especially watching football games. It would be nice to utilize the cable i pay for when gone for the summer


I have seen some claim that they were able to get a VPN setup to use minis in other locations, so apparently, it is possible. Having said that, possible is not probable as the upload on the home location would have to be able to handle a steady 20Mbps to do live TV on the remote mini. Most of the standard, non-fios ISP's, usually have a measly 5-10Mbps upload unless you are on the top speed tiers at the home location. 
If you have tried the standard Tivo streaming function at the remote location and that works then simply use that, but considering it is pretty buggy and a bit unreliable, some folks have gone a bit old school and simply use a Slingbox at home and a PC or whatever at the remote location. The 350 or an M1-M2 Slingbox are a bit less expensive and I recommend you use component connections to avoid DRM issues that can show up if trying to use HDMI on the 500 model. You may not get the highest resolution, but you are likely to get the best resolution the remote location will support anyway.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

Yep, a Slingbox will work much better than a VPN and doesn't require anywhere near as much bandwidth. I can use my 350 to watch everything on my Tivo anywhere in the world (including all streaming services, like Netflix, that would otherwise be blocked, even on a VPN).


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## David B Gregory (Feb 26, 2018)

What converter do you use from HDMI to component? does it duplicate the HDMI as a splitter and can handle the different resolution so the TV stays connected? 
I have 20MB upload at the Bolt, but you can never guarantee that the speed will be there, and 100MB download. I was looking at using Cisco RV320 on each end and create a PVC between the two networks


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

David B Gregory said:


> What converter do you use from HDMI to component? does it duplicate the HDMI as a splitter and can handle the different resolution so the TV stays connected?
> I have 20MB upload at the Bolt, but you can never guarantee that the speed will be there, and 100MB download. I was looking at using Cisco RV320 on each end and create a PVC between the two networks


Most Tivo folks would use a mini as the component source via one of these cables, TiVo Breakout Cable Kit for Mini and Roamio (Composite and Component) - TiVo Cable - WeaKnees - the DVR Superstore pW7o4J7geaVbYdRAYOGJq4aAsaFEALw_wcB also available via Tivo and Amazon. 
Those Cisco products have some interesting reviews on Amazon, Amazon.com: Customer reviews: 2QW1646 - Cisco RV320 Dual WAN VPN Router but by all means give them a try and then comeback and let us know how you made out.


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## David B Gregory (Feb 26, 2018)

Thank you, I can order the breakout cable, same price from Amazon and hook up to a mini.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

David B Gregory said:


> I have 20MB upload at the Bolt, but you can never guarantee that the speed will be there, and 100MB download. I was looking at using Cisco RV320 on each end and create a PVC between the two networks


Not sure that 20Mbps uplink is going to cut it given overhead for the VPN connection and actual throughput.

Scott


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

HerronScott said:


> Not sure that 20Mbps uplink is going to cut it given overhead for the VPN connection and actual throughput.
> Scott


I don't understand. I have a Stream. I go to TiVo Online and I can watch a recorded TV show, 1080i DD5.1, on my computer. My upstream is 7Mbps max. Where is the magic part I'm missing?


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

JoeKustra said:


> I don't understand. I have a Stream. I go to TiVo Online and I can watch a recorded TV show, 1080i DD5.1, on my computer. My upstream is 7Mbps max. Where is the magic part I'm missing?


The 20 Mbps uplink wouldn't be sufficient for supporting a remote Mini via a VPN connection. It would be fine for TiVo mobile streaming or for a Slingbox stream.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

krkaufman said:


> The 20 Mbps uplink wouldn't be sufficient for supporting a remote Mini via a VPN connection. It would be fine for TiVo mobile streaming or for a Slingbox stream.


Got it. I'm using my internal network, so the internet is not a factor. Thanks.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

JoeKustra said:


> Got it. I'm using my internal network, so the internet is not a factor. Thanks.





JoeKustra said:


> I don't understand. I have a Stream. I go to TiVo Online and I can watch a recorded TV show, 1080i DD5.1, on my computer. My upstream is 7Mbps max. Where is the magic part I'm missing?


Right and you were talking about streaming which transcodes to a lower format at a much lower bitrate compared to a Mini which receives the original source.

Scott


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## David B Gregory (Feb 26, 2018)

fcfc2 said:


> I have seen some claim that they were able to get a VPN setup to use minis in other locations, so apparently, it is possible. Having said that, possible is not probable as the upload on the home location would have to be able to handle a steady 20Mbps to do live TV on the remote mini. Most of the standard, non-fios ISP's, usually have a measly 5-10Mbps upload unless you are on the top speed tiers at the home location.
> If you have tried the standard Tivo streaming function at the remote location and that works then simply use that, but considering it is pretty buggy and a bit unreliable, some folks have gone a bit old school and simply use a Slingbox at home and a PC or whatever at the remote location. The 350 or an M1-M2 Slingbox are a bit less expensive and I recommend you use component connections to avoid DRM issues that can show up if trying to use HDMI on the 500 model. You may not get the highest resolution, but you are likely to get the best resolution the remote location will support anyway.


I purchased the cable, but should have checked my mini's first. I have the mini Vox and it does not have the output to put the cable for component video.


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

David B Gregory said:


> I purchased the cable, but should have checked my mini's first. I have the mini Vox and it does not have the output to put the cable for component video.


Sorry, I do have a Bolt+ but no VOX period and I forgot about the new minis altogether. I am really not a Bolt fan either and prefer the older Roamio Plus or Pro units along with the 93000 series minis but the 92000's will also work well with the Slingboxes. I also don't know if there are any adapters which would go from HDMI to component either, maybe someone else knows about that.


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## UnitMaster (Jan 31, 2019)

fcfc2 said:


> I have seen some claim that they were able to get a VPN setup to use minis in other locations, so apparently, it is possible. Having said that, possible is not probable as the upload on the home location would have to be able to handle a steady 20Mbps to do live TV on the remote mini. Most of the standard, non-fios ISP's, usually have a measly 5-10Mbps upload unless you are on the top speed tiers at the home location.
> If you have tried the standard Tivo streaming function at the remote location and that works then simply use that, but considering it is pretty buggy and a bit unreliable, some folks have gone a bit old school and simply use a Slingbox at home and a PC or whatever at the remote location. The 350 or an M1-M2 Slingbox are a bit less expensive and I recommend you use component connections to avoid DRM issues that can show up if trying to use HDMI on the 500 model. You may not get the highest resolution, but you are likely to get the best resolution the remote location will support anyway.


The A93 minis only have a 10 BaseT ethernet port in them so I'm not sure where you are getting you 20 megabit upload requirements.


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

UnitMaster said:


> The A93 minis only have a 10 BaseT ethernet port in them so I'm not sure where you are getting you 20 megabit upload requirements.


I don't know where you are getting your specs, but the minis use what are commonly called fast Ethernet which is capable of 100Mbps. Since the mini on a local network can use up to *20Mbps for live TV*, your VPN has to be capable of uploading up to that rate when being used. Since most ISP's have asymmetrical speeds and most customers simply don't offer that kind of upload unless you are on the highest speed tiers you rule out the majority of folks. If you use fiber which usually has symmetrical speeds this may be workable. However, if you are traveling, you may find that the available download speed in a hotel/motel etc. may not be sufficient either as sometimes these are really only a courtesy speed for surfing and checking email and such. Streaming services which are more highly compressed can often be used, but these can work at surprisingly low band width, same for something like the slingbox which transcodes the videos at a much lower bandwidth.
I was also referencing the few folks who occasionally have reported success but also the failure of others and the likely cause.


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## UnitMaster (Jan 31, 2019)

fcfc2 said:


> I don't know where you are getting your specs, but the minis use what are commonly called fast Ethernet which is capable of 100Mbps. Since the mini on a local network can use up to *20Mbps for live TV*, your VPN has to be capable of uploading up to that rate when being used. Since most ISP's have asymmetrical speeds and most customers simply don't offer that kind of upload unless you are on the highest speed tiers you rule out the majority of folks. If you use fiber which usually has symmetrical speeds this may be workable. However, if you are traveling, you may find that the available download speed in a hotel/motel etc. may not be sufficient either as sometimes these are really only a courtesy speed for surfing and checking email and such. Streaming services which are more highly compressed can often be used, but these can work at surprisingly low band width, same for something like the slingbox which transcodes the videos at a much lower bandwidth.
> I was also referencing the few folks who occasionally have reported success but also the failure of others and the likely cause.


Not true. Yes "fast Ethernet" is 100 megabits but the A93's don't have true fast Ethernet they only have 10baseT.. You can test this by opening up the Netflix app and then running the Netflix diagnostic feature. You'll never see faster than 10 megabits. Also check your switch lights, if you have an older 10/100 switch only the 10 will be lit.


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

UnitMaster said:


> Not true. Yes "fast Ethernet" is 100 megabits but the A93's don't have true fast Ethernet they only have 10baseT.. You can test this by opening up the Netflix app and then running the Netflix diagnostic feature. You'll never see faster than 10 megabits. Also check your switch lights, if you have an older 10/100 switch only the 10 will be lit.


I don't mind arguing over something important, but I think your testing or equipment is faulty. Please feel free to try and use your VPN on a mini at a remote location for live TV. The specs for the minis say they have fast Ethernet and several others have reported the mini pulling up to 20Mbps for live TV....argue with them.
EDIT: I just re-read your last post, what netflix or any other streaming service uses as their max bandwidth are generally well below, due to compression and transcoding, what a mini can use with *LIVE TV, LIVE TV, LIVE TV*, is much different. Streaming services generally use only a fraction of what LIVE TV uses.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

UnitMaster said:


> Not true. Yes "fast Ethernet" is 100 megabits but the A93's don't have true fast Ethernet they only have 10baseT.. You can test this by opening up the Netflix app and then running the Netflix diagnostic feature. You'll never see faster than 10 megabits. Also check your switch lights, if you have an older 10/100 switch only the 10 will be lit.


I have an A93 and it is showing a 100Mbps connection on my network switch so not sure what's wrong with your switch (or the negotiated speed). I'm afraid that running the Netflix connection speed test isn't a good way to verify your network connection on the Mini.

Port 1 is the 1Gbps uplink for the switch (green) and port 3 is the 100Mbps connection for the Mini A93 (amber). If it were a 10Mbps connection the top LED would be off.










Scott


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

HerronScott said:


> Scott


Thank you for saving me the work of changing the wireless bridge that supports my A93 and A95 Mini units. It doesn't have a way of showing the link speed.


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## UnitMaster (Jan 31, 2019)

The Netflix testing app as nothing to do with the Netflix streaming rate. It is a utility there so the Netflix engineers (or anyone) can test your actual network link speed. Does anyone on an A93 have a rate higher that 10.x speeds? If so please let us know as this shows the true speed of the link speed of your Mini A93. If any of you have an A95 Vox mini, run the exact same Netflix network speed test on those and see the change. The A95 has a true 100 meg uncapitated connection.

What all of this tells you is that Tivo capitates speeds internally at 10 mbs of the A93's. Who knows why they do this. It could be at the time they were released, they assumed most home networks were 10baseT. But I'm telling you that the A93's don't run faster the 10 megs.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

UnitMaster said:


> The A95 has a true 100 meg uncapitated connection.


The A95 Mini VOX has a Gigabit Ethernet port.

p.s. Note that the Mini VOX is 4K-capable, so Netflix may use a different test approach (conditions, servers) for the A95 than it does for the older Minis.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

UnitMaster said:


> What all of this tells you is that Tivo capitates speeds internally at 10 mbs of the A93's. Who knows why they do this. It could be at the time they were released, they assumed most home networks were 10baseT. But I'm telling you that the A93's don't run faster the 10 megs.


And it's been reasonably demonstrated that all Minis most definitely do better than 10 Mbps, since streaming live or recorded MPEG2 content from their host DVR can require 20 Mbps. (Use KMTTG to identify a program's bitrate, then stream it to a Mini.)

The Netflix test is NOT a reliable test of a device's LAN throughput max.


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## Time_Lord (Jun 4, 2012)

just shy of 17Mb/s... this is from my switch, so "output" is from the switch to the Mini (see below).

about the max I've see is 19Mb/s, depends upon what you are watching, fast moving High def images (eg sports) tend to use more bandwidth, like others said it depends upon the compression used and how efficient it is on the content being watched.

-TL

GigabitEthernet1/0/5 is up, line protocol is up (connected)
Hardware is Gigabit Ethernet, address is 0008.2fe5.8505 (bia 0008.2fe5.8505)
* Description: TiVO Mini (My Desk)*
MTU 1500 bytes, *BW 100000 Kbit/sec*, DLY 100 usec,
reliability 255/255, txload 43/255, rxload 1/255
Encapsulation ARPA, loopback not set
Keepalive set (10 sec)
*Full-duplex, 100Mb/s*, media type is 10/100/1000BaseTX
input flow-control is off, output flow-control is unsupported
ARP type: ARPA, ARP Timeout 04:00:00
Last input never, output 00:00:01, output hang never
Last clearing of "show interface" counters never
Input queue: 0/75/0/0 (size/max/drops/flushes); Total output drops: 7850
Queueing strategy: fifo
Output queue: 0/40 (size/max)
* 30 second input rate 481000 bits/sec, 830 packets/sec
30 second output rate 16966000 bits/sec, 1475 packets/sec*
74934763 packets input, 5416727407 bytes, 0 no buffer
Received 204815 broadcasts (100243 multicasts)
0 runts, 0 giants, 0 throttles
0 input errors, 0 CRC, 0 frame, 0 overrun, 0 ignored
0 watchdog, 100243 multicast, 0 pause input
0 input packets with dribble condition detected
132042216 packets output, 142276270533 bytes, 0 underruns
0 output errors, 0 collisions, 1 interface resets
0 unknown protocol drops
0 babbles, 0 late collision, 0 deferred
0 lost carrier, 0 no carrier, 0 pause output
0 output buffer failures, 0 output buffers swapped out


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## southerndoc (Apr 5, 2003)

I've often found that slow connections (100 instead of gig) is often due to a bad cable. Just too much noise on the cable.


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## cwoody222 (Nov 13, 1999)

My partner got this setup working this week.

I don’t fully understand all he did but this is the basics, I think.

We both have Gigabit Fios at our homes. He set up servers with VPN at both locations, on the same subnet. Then he used Sophos firewall software on both to make the setup think it was on the same network. It took him a bit of experimentation to get the setup correct in Sophos. There was also some checkbox in Windows related to virtualization that he had to discover and uncheck.

He setup his Bolt at my place, connected to my server via Ethernet. It will connect perfectly to his multiple Mini Vox units at his place.

He said everything works flawlessly - playing, recording, trickplay, etc. he says he literally cannot tell the difference from when the Bolt was at his house.

Upload and download usage at both locations is minimal. Since Fios is symmetrical, I was watching 4K HDR Netflix on WiFi on a non-TiVo device while he was accessing the Bolt from his place. Not even a hiccup.

We (well, he) did it was a proof of concept and it works perfectly.


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## David B Gregory (Feb 26, 2018)

cwoody222 said:


> My partner got this setup working this week.
> 
> I don't fully understand all he did but this is the basics, I think.
> 
> ...


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## David B Gregory (Feb 26, 2018)

I am glad to see someone got it working. I purchased two TP-Link VPN routers with the hope of setting up a subnet from my Florida home where I have gigabit up/down to my summer place. I worked on the configurations for days without luck, basically I need someone in each location to change configs and test, so I bought an Amazon Recast and can remotely watch my OTA channels via streaming with no problems.


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## bbloom96 (Mar 12, 2016)

I use a slingbox and an A93 mini with the slingbox app on a firestick. I can watch anything on my DVR or live TV over a 5Mb internet connection at my farm in Iowa or my cabin on the river using my phones internet hotspot.

The controls are a little slow, but the streaming is great.


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## kdmorse (Jan 29, 2001)

I think the last time I tried a Mini over a VPN, it was symmetrical FIOS 75Mbps, to a Comcast 50/10Mbps, with about 25ms RTT between the two. It didn't go entirely well. We were unable to set up the Mini remotely, we had to move the Mini and the Parent to the same location. Once set up, we could then move the Mini to the remote location, but the experience was, substandard. Live TV never worked well, playing recordings worked, but with issues that would bounce you out of the program back to Tivo central repeatedly if someone dared try to use the line for anything else. It was very, very twitchy if the line was ever anything other than 100% perfect. On the same VPN, we had Premiers (and now Roamios and Bolts) merrily doing MRS and MRV without issue.

Now the same setup is running symmetrical 1G at both ends, with a 4ms in tunnel response time. We should probably try Mini's again, except each location now has multiple parent boxes, the parent boxes talk over the VPN, and the mini's all talk to their local parents, and there's no real need to try to cross connect them other than curiosity. But it's good to know that it might work.


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## rcliff (Jun 16, 2001)

cwoody222 said:


> My partner got this setup working this week.
> 
> I don't fully understand all he did but this is the basics, I think.
> 
> We both have Gigabit Fios at our homes. He set up servers with VPN at both locations, on the same subnet. Then he used Sophos firewall software on both to make the setup think it was on the same network. It took him a bit of experimentation to get the setup correct in Sophos. There was also some checkbox in Windows related to virtualization that he had to discover and uncheck.


Greetings. I'm trying to set up something similar for my vacation cottage and have a ipsec VPN tunnel and presumably adequate bandwidth between sites. Routing is working fine by directionally between the sites and I'm see throughput of about 20Mb/sec. No issues ping devices across the VPN and zero packet loss. The issue is that the Mini does not see the Bolt on the other side of the VPN and there is no way to manually assign the IP of the bolt (server) to the mini. By definition, each end of the VPN must be on a different subnet so that the traffic is routable, in this case one network is 192.168.1.0/24 and the other 192.168.100.0/24. I think the Mini expects the bolt to be on the same subnet and is not discovering the bolt. How did you guys get the mini to discover the Bolt(s) across the VPN? Thanks for any assistance


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## kdmorse (Jan 29, 2001)

rcliff said:


> Greetings. I'm trying to set up something similar for my vacation cottage and have a ipsec VPN tunnel and presumably adequate bandwidth between sites. Routing is working fine by directionally between the sites and I'm see throughput of about 20Mb/sec. No issues ping devices across the VPN and zero packet loss. The issue is that the Mini does not see the Bolt on the other side of the VPN and there is no way to manually assign the IP of the bolt (server) to the mini. By definition, each end of the VPN must be on a different subnet so that the traffic is routable, in this case one network is 192.168.1.0/24 and the other 192.168.100.0/24. I think the Mini expects the bolt to be on the same subnet and is not discovering the bolt. How did you guys get the mini to discover the Bolt(s) across the VPN? Thanks for any assistance


I think you'll find tricking the Tivo's into working does indeed require a Bridge based VPN, with the same subnet on both sides (from the tivo's point of view). Everyone manages the details a implementation a bit differently. Back when lines were slower, it was important to keep 'unnecessary' traffic off the bridge, but with line speeds these days, you almost don't have to worry about it. It's easy enough to run one location as 192.168.1.0/23, the other at 192.168.2.0/23, and just block DHCP on the bridge. My personal implementation is older, (no need to rebuild it), where I leave each side it's own subnet, then build a bridged supernet just for the tivo's. (Site a, 192.168.1.0/24, site b 192.168.2.0/24, but the tivos get a netmask of /23, and the bridge carries only L2 tivo<->tivo traffic filtered by mac address).

I cannot imagine a path to success using ipsec in Tunnel mode, due to the limitations of, well, it's just not designed to do that. Maybe you could twist Transport mode into doing something for you, but I don't really know, I wouldn't put any money on getting the broadcasts across. Underneath virtually every working Tivo VPN, you'll find an instance of OpenVPN (be it run on it's own, or embedded in a router).


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## rcliff (Jun 16, 2001)

kdmorse said:


> I think you'll find tricking the Tivo's into working does indeed require a Bridge based VPN, with the same subnet on both sides (from the tivo's point of view). Everyone manages the details a implementation a bit differently. Back when lines were slower, it was important to keep 'unnecessary' traffic off the bridge, but with line speeds these days, you almost don't have to worry about it. It's easy enough to run one location as 192.168.1.0/23, the other at 192.168.2.0/23, and just block DHCP on the bridge. My personal implementation is older, (no need to rebuild it), where I leave each side it's own subnet, then build a bridged supernet just for the tivo's. (Site a, 192.168.1.0/24, site b 192.168.2.0/24, but the tivos get a netmask of /23, and the bridge carries only L2 tivo<->tivo traffic filtered by mac address).
> 
> I cannot imagine a path to success using ipsec in Tunnel mode, due to the limitations of, well, it's just not designed to do that. Maybe you could twist Transport mode into doing something for you, but I don't really know, I wouldn't put any money on getting the broadcasts across. Underneath virtually every working Tivo VPN, you'll find an instance of OpenVPN (be it run on it's own, or embedded in a router).


Thanks for that. I don't think my current firewalls support bridged VPN with the exception of mobile clients. Do you have any info on how the Mini's discovery process works? What protocols it uses and whether there are broadcast services as well?


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## ringo574 (Feb 13, 2006)

rcliff said:


> Thanks for that. I don't think my current firewalls support bridged VPN with the exception of mobile clients. Do you have any info on how the Mini's discovery process works? What protocols it uses and whether there are broadcast services as well?


I made a couple post on here about how I got my Mini connected over OpenVPN and I don't remember what the protocol is because it has been so long since I set it up but I can tell you that I'm forwarding port 943 on the server side and that port is a Microsoft Silverlight port. And if I'm forwarding that port I must have read something somewhere about having to forwarding that port. Its been more that 4 years since I've been up and still running fine. Occasionally I check on here to see if others are attempting this and to offer some help.


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## kdmorse (Jan 29, 2001)

rcliff said:


> Thanks for that. I don't think my current firewalls support bridged VPN with the exception of mobile clients. Do you have any info on how the Mini's discovery process works? What protocols it uses and whether there are broadcast services as well?


At the very least, Tivo's expect to be able to see each other with UDP Broadcasts to 2190 (old Beacon protocl), and Multicasts to udp 1902 (SSDP) and 5353 (mDNS). Once they find each other, they at the very least expect TCP ports 2191 and 1413 to be open for unit to unit conversations. Mini's are known to fall off the network if they cannot form reliable multicast groups with their parent or get pruned by IGMP.

This is not an all-inclusive list. One mans personal opinion - it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, they will fail to talk to each other if they detect they aren't on the same subnet (they check - to prevent exactly what you're trying to do). So rig it so they're on the same subnet/broadcast domain, permitting full connectivity between them, and everything else falls into place.

Were it me (fair warning, I'm a crazy person), starting with what you already have, I might simply grab two systems capable of running linux (Raspberri Pi's would probably work), and drop one in each subnet (local network only, no external connection). Toss OpenVPN on each Pi (disabling encryption), and build a bridge mode UDP vpn from one pi to another (using internal addresses only, as your existing ipsec router will permit the two pi's to talk). Then each pi bridges the vpn0 interface to eth0, with ebtables rules in place to only permit the MAC address of known Tivo's to cross from eth0 to vpn0 (at each end). Either static, or use a DHCP server capable of lying, to give the Tivo's a netmask of 255.255.0.0, but ip addresses and routers in your subnet. They will think they're on the same network, arp for each other (arps go into local pi's eth0, forwarded to vpn0 -> remote pi's vpn0 -> remote network eth0), and find their friends mac addresses. They will each be able to also talk to their respective local networks, use the local router, dns, etc... (But due to the shenanigans in play, they will not be able to talk to non-tivo's on the other site, so no cross site kmttg, etc.. unless you do even sillier things. )

But as I said, I'm a crazy person. In my world, *all* problems can be solved with the addition of just one more linux router...


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## Xavmt78 (May 16, 2020)

rcliff said:


> Greetings. I'm trying to set up something similar for my vacation cottage and have a ipsec VPN tunnel and presumably adequate bandwidth between sites. Routing is working fine by directionally between the sites and I'm see throughput of about 20Mb/sec. No issues ping devices across the VPN and zero packet loss. The issue is that the Mini does not see the Bolt on the other side of the VPN and there is no way to manually assign the IP of the bolt (server) to the mini. By definition, each end of the VPN must be on a different subnet so that the traffic is routable, in this case one network is 192.168.1.0/24 and the other 192.168.100.0/24. I think the Mini expects the bolt to be on the same subnet and is not discovering the bolt. How did you guys get the mini to discover the Bolt(s) across the VPN? Thanks for any assistance


Hi rcliff,

Setup was relatively straightforward.

1) We used Sophos XG Firewall (Sophos offers free uncrippled firewall for home use) at both sites. I opted to use Sophos XG as the RED (Remote Ethernet Device) feature setup acts as a virtual ethernet connection, it allows for both ends of the network to seamlessly appear on the same subnet and passes broadcasts across the tunnel without restrictions.

2) Between these firewalls, we created a RED VPN tunnel and bridged both ends of the tunnel to a physical NIC to allow ethernet connection between the Bolt at site A and the Mini's at site B.

3) Plug in your TiVOs and go.

That said, there is a caveat you are most likely to encounter. Once you successfully establish a remote link between your Tivo Bolt and Mini(s), I learned that when you begin to view a recording on a mini, the mini first pings the Bolt to check network quality. If the ping is to high, the Mini will throw a V113 error. You could have excellent speeds (bandwidth) at both sites but should this ping be too high it will fail. I have included a link below for a bit more info. It appears you will need to call support and convince them to disable the RTT check.

https://support.tivo.com/articles/Device_Error_Code/V113-Error-Code

As was previously mentioned, we both have FiOS at each of our homes and I know we just happen to be served from the same central office. The ping times between our locations is 1ms. I have tried this same setup between Spectrum and a FiOS connection and kept getting the v113 error. the ping times I observed was 23ms which was apparently failing TiVO's network quality checks.

Presently, when using the TiVO mini remotely, I have observed peak bandwidth usage of no more than 15-18Mbps. This is important to bear in mind so that you are placing your Bolt at the site with the larger upload bandwidth connection.

For me the PROS of this setup is it truly is seamless, menu guides, recordings etc, everything operations as if the Bolt is in the same location. There is no lags or degradation of picture quality; 4k streams work flawlessly.

The CONS of this setup; it can become a bit technical and frustrating to implement.

Alternative setup is a Slingbox, it's obvious it will work, but seriously how boring is that  I really enjoyed the challenge of getting this to work. If you have any questions shoot an email.


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## rcliff (Jun 16, 2001)

Great replies here guys. Thank you. I'm wondering if I could take couple of old linksys routers running dd-wrt and use openvpn to create a L2 ethernet tunnel? Or maybe the performance will not be adequate with that hardware? More importantly, I'm also not sure if my connection will be stable enough to support the required perfect link (zero packet loss). Surely a packet may be dropped on rare occasion and if that causes the tivo to throw an error then this will be nothing but a nuisance. I do have a slingbox m2 that I haven't used in a while that I might dust off. While less than perfect from a usability standpoint, it works reasonably well and is quite forgiving on the connection.


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## ringo574 (Feb 13, 2006)

rcliff said:


> Great replies here guys. Thank you. I'm wondering if I could take couple of old linksys routers running dd-wrt and use openvpn to create a L2 ethernet tunnel? Or maybe the performance will not be adequate with that hardware? More importantly, I'm also not sure if my connection will be stable enough to support the required perfect link (zero packet loss). Surely a packet may be dropped on rare occasion and if that causes the tivo to throw an error then this will be nothing but a nuisance. I do have a slingbox m2 that I haven't used in a while that I might dust off. While less than perfect from a usability standpoint, it works reasonably well and is quite forgiving on the connection.


Not enough power
Accessing TiVo Content from 2nd Home
2nd post down


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## rcliff (Jun 16, 2001)

ringo574 said:


> Not enough power
> Accessing TiVo Content from 2nd Home
> 2nd post down


Excellent post, thanks. May give that a try. I did set up the Slingbox M2 and that is working with a fire TV as the client but the remote control functionality, while reasonably complete, is painful to use due to the delay.


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## castleren (Sep 8, 2021)

If you've tried the standard Tivo streaming feature in a remote location and it works, just use it, but given that, it's pretty glitchy. A little unreliable. Some people have gone a little old school and just use a Slingbox at home and on a PC. or something else in a remote location. The 350 or M1-M2 Slingbox is a little cheaper. I recommend using component connections to avoid the DRM issues you might get when using HDMI on the 500 models. You may not get the highest resolution, but you will probably get the best solution, which will support remote locations anyway. But right now, I'm using vpnstart.com since it doesn't need to be configured.


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## Tom60 (4 mo ago)

Has anyone had success running a TiVo mini over a VPN tunnel? First home has TiVo Bolt and Verizon Fios 400/400 and I could upgrade to 1G up and down. I'm buying a second home where I'd like to use a Tivo mini to connect to my first homes TiVo Bolt. Second home will have Spectrum and speeds up to 1G down. Up will likely be lower. I'd buy a TiVo Edge for my second home, but Spectrum no longer offers cable card.


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## cwoody222 (Nov 13, 1999)

Tom60 said:


> Has anyone had success running a TiVo mini over a VPN tunnel? First home has TiVo Bolt and Verizon Fios 400/400 and I could upgrade to 1G up and down. I'm buying a second home where I'd like to use a Tivo mini to connect to my first homes TiVo Bolt. Second home will have Spectrum and speeds up to 1G down. Up will likely be lower. I'd buy a TiVo Edge for my second home, but Spectrum no longer offers cable card.


It won’t work. There’ll be too much latency between Fios and Spectrum.

Lots of threads in this forum. Here’s one:








Mini over VPN


Has anyone set up a vpn between two locations to utilize a mini over the vpn to a bolt. I have never had luck using the streaming service, especially watching football games. It would be nice to utilize the cable i pay for when gone for the summer




www.tivocommunity.com





re: Spectrum and cable cards, there is LOTS of misinformation and frankly “sky is falling” info going around. Have you actually contacted Spectrum and attempted to request a CC from your new location and was told “No”? (and I mean an actual no such as “we no longer offer cc to new subscribers as of (date)” not an uninformed rep saying “huh? what’s a cable card? I don’t see that on my menu”)


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## Tom60 (4 mo ago)

cwoody222 said:


> It won’t work. There’ll be too much latency between Fios and Spectrum.
> 
> Lots of threads in this forum. Here’s one:
> 
> ...


My new house is new construction and won't be finished until the end of October. Spectrum rep could not give me much information because I don't have service at that address yet. Rep was mostly unfamiliar with cable cards but said he thought Spectrum no longer supported them. I will ask again when I'm actually able to establish service.


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## cwoody222 (Nov 13, 1999)

Tom60 said:


> My new house is new construction and won't be finished until the end of October. Spectrum rep could not give me much information because I don't have service at that address yet. Rep was mostly unfamiliar with cable cards but said he thought Spectrum no longer supported them. I will ask again when I'm actually able to establish service.


Find a rep who KNOWS not one who “thinks” something. Especially if they’re not familiar.

You’ll find Spectrum is worse than Fios in almost every regard. I’ve had both and they’re night and day.


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