Radiostation and mediaplayer

[MattDLEA]

Dont know if this is better in here or a network section.

The school have a radiostation that the kids use its very good.

However over the past few weeks (since we have changed bb suppliers) we have noticed that it is not broardcasting properly.
It uses microsoft media services or something that and the programs broadcast on port 1755

In school we have one server that does everythign when the BB changed over i changed the network settings on there and all the other computers work.
The radiostation computer is in a work group with its own static IP everything looks ok it gets the internet and everything. in the prefered DNS server the numbers are pointing at the default server IP not the new DNS servers that the BB providers gave us. Is this a problem?

Anyways on the radiostation computer i can open up media player and go open url > localhost:1755 and it works if i go onto any other computer on the network and open up media player > open url > 10.72.240.15:1755 (which is the radiostations internal ip) it works. However if i go and open url >computername:1755 it fails with this error

Windows Media Player cannot connect to the server. The server name might not be correct, the server might not be available, or your proxy settings might not be correct.

How come the ip works but the name doesnt?

Thanks for any help

[VeryPC_Tom_M]

Sounds like a DNS Issue to me, as you can connect via IP, but not computer name...

[MattDLEA]

i can ping the computername from another pc on the network but not open it up in mediaplayer?

Should the preferred DNS for the workstation computer be the internal server or the ones provided by the bb company?

[MattDLEA]

We have this now working.

However we have a new problem to overcome currently we pay a company to help stream the radio. Basically you click on a link and it opens up in media player. This works both inside and outside the school and the northerngrid.
We have a server streaming music out.

The school would like to get rid of most of the straming costs.

So I have produced a .asx file

<ASX Version="3.0">
<ENTRY>
<TITLE>Test</TITLE>
<AUTHOR>test</AUTHOR>
<COPYRIGHT>test</COPYRIGHT>
<REF href = "http://x.x.x.x:xxx"/>
</ENTRY>
</ASX>

and added it to a link on a web page. where the ref is to the external ip and port. This works for me at home.
However in school and in the grid this does not work.

Im sure i could make to links one with the code above and one with the internal ip for computers in school however what about for other compuers in the grid but not in our school.

Is there anything you can think of for me to do

[SYNACK]

Split DNS is the answer, basically the grid hardware is to thick to pass the traffic out then back in again so you want to use a radio.yourschool.whatever.uk DNS entry that you can have mapped to the external IP when you are on an outside connection and a record on your internal DNS servers that points it to an internal ip when inside. There are many different grades of firewalls and unfortunately some are nowhere near as good as others.

[MattDLEA]

Thanks Synack.

Do you have any instructions on how to do that?

[SYNACK]

I can give you an overview, its not overly complicated just involves a few different systems.

You need to change that XML to ref radio.whatever.uk:xxx

get the lea/grid/dns people who run your domain to add an a record for radio.whatever.uk pointing to the external IP that goes to the radio. You then need to go into your internal DNS server and add a new authorities zone for radio.whatever.uk then add a blank record into it with the IP of the internal radio server that clients can get to from inside.

This way when your internal clients hit it and resolve the IP they get the one that works inside as long as they are using your internal DNS server. If they are outside then they get the external record which points to the external IP.

[MattDLEA]

Thanks Synack,

just to check, with the external ip in the xml it works from my house. but from with in the school and another school in the same area it doesn't.

From the solution above i can see it will work again from my house and from with in the school. But how will other schools in the same grid be affected?

[SYNACK]

Thanks Synack,

just to check, with the external ip in the xml it works from my house. but from with in the school and another school in the same area it doesn't.

From the solution above i can see it will work again from my house and from with in the school. But how will other schools in the same grid be affected?

Ah, slightly different problem. In order to sort that you would need to get the grid people to have a record on their grid wide DNS to the one that works internally just for that subdomain as above and so then you would not need to. As long as they are running split DNS (extremely likely) this should work and mean that connections in the grid will be pointed to the internal IP and those outside will be pointed to the external. Does not hurt to dupe the internal DNS record as that way your school would be good even if the grid forgot or misplaced their internal DNS entry for that specific DNS name.