Hi

I have found a lot of references and explanations on how to set up the Web UI, and I can access it fine on the same computer using the username and password I have set up. However, my reason for wanting to use the Web UI is so that I can add torrents when I am away from my home, using my phone.

I know there is a remote torrent plugin available for Firefox, but as I will be using my phone, this is not an option. I also cannot find anything on the Play Store to achieve this.

Is it even possible to do this? Apologies if I am over-explaining or missing something basic, but I do mean than I want to access my home Tixati server over the internet, from an entirely different device and location, and not through a local network or 127.0.0.1. If this is possible, what URL do I enter to connect to my Tixati server remotely?

I am really struggling to find any helpful info on this topic, so please be nice and specific.

Given your elaborate and thoughtful question, I will be ;)

Tixati's web interface has a port option (this is self-explanatory I hope) and the IP address to listen on - this is the same as you "binding to a VPN interface" you'll find threads about. This IP address is crucial to restrict Tixati to a specific network if you have multiple. Here are some examples:

0.0.0.0 (or leave blank, this is default) - Tixati will bind aka listen on all available addresses of this computer. That is localhost (127.0.0.1), LAN+Internet (e.g. 192.168.0.42) and if available the VPN connection (e.g. 10.13.73.45). No restrictions.
192.168.0.42 - only listen on LAN+Internet (because you receive internet through your router on the same LAN, your computer isn't connected directly)
127.0.0.1 - only accept localhost connections. Nobody outside the PC could connect to it (useful for testing only)
10.13.73.45 - only for connections coming in from a VPN. You can only use this if your VPN supports port-forwarding.

If you are on LAN with your phone, the URL to open the web interface is: http(s)://username:password@YOURIP/
-> http(s)://username:password@192.168.0.42/
In Tixati settings the user:pass are literally to be typed as follows: myUserName/MyNotTooLongPassword (one per line, without quotes)

However normally you can't access your computer from outside, e.g. from the Internet. Even if you found out your external IP (like websites ifconfig.io / ifconfig.co and many others) and tried it: either your router won't forward this connection (you need port-forwarding) or your ISP (due to NAT).

This leaves you with two options:
a) if you have actually your own IPv4: do port-forwarding on the router for IPv4
a2) if you have IPv6 and IPv4 doesn't work: do port-forwarding on the router for IPv6 and try again. Obviously your phone must have IPv6 connectivity when abroad, this is a major pitfall. Though there're "IPv6 tunnels" like Teredo, I don't even know if it's possible to set up on phones.
b) Get a VPN that does support real port-forwarding (not on your router!), you'll need two ports: one for Tixati's p2p communication and another dedicated to the web-interface. Then you'd be able to connect to the web interface via the VPN server's external IP address

Depending on how much traffic you push (winky face) a VPN is a good investment (since certain parties make it be a financial calculation)... as well as a donation to Tixati <3

There're some services that, from what I understand, open ports through NAT (and only certain types of NAT) and these have free tiers. Yet port-forwarding is so essential for Bittorrent that I will not go into it at all.
If you can't open ports for the web interface on your router and are fine with a VPN option, I'd walk you through the configuration, it's not hard.

You will need to port forward if you want to access it outside of your local network. I recommend watching a video or two on port forwarding. If you are on Windows, open command prompt and type "ipconfig" it will show you the default gateway. Type that address into your browser and login to your router. Look for an option called port forwarding or port mapping. My router calls it port mapping.

Here's an example.

Your router's public IP is:  1.2.3.4
Your computer's private IP is:  192.168.2.2
Your router's private/LAN IP is:  192.168.2.1

When port forwarding, you will need to tell your router the private/LAN IP and the LAN port number. Tixati uses 8080 by default. You will also need to pick a public port number. You can pick the same port(8080) for the public port. If your router asks you for a protocol, select TCP because that's what HTTPS/HTTP uses.

This is the information my router asks for on the port forwarding page.


After port forwarding, your URL to remotely access the webUI would look something like this:  https://1.2.3.4:8080/

If your IP is dynamic(most likely), you should get a dynamic DNS service. I won't mention any specific ones but there's at least one free one you can use.

If you want to access the webUI locally use the private/LAN IP instead of the public one(even if you do setup port forwarding). Example: https://192.168.2.2:8080/

Consider enabling HTTPS in Tixati webUI settings even if you aren't accessing it remotely over the internet.

If you have any questions, let me know and I can explain it in more detail.

Please watch these videos first and then read my previous reply.

IPv4, IPv6 and NAT explained: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aor29pGhlFE

port forwarding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmQnJRXbzEk

Hi Guys (not sure if different Guests answered)

Thanks for the detailed help, I appreciate it.

I have tried to set up as explained, but I'm still struggling. I am already using Private Internet Acces (PIA) VPN, and although I enabled the option to request port forwaring, it does assign the port randomly whenever I connect to a server. I supose this goes for when I reconnect to the same server as well. Either way, I can see this port on the PIA interface, so I know that it assigns a 5-digit port. I added this (current) port to Tixati's TCP port for incoming connections under the Web Interface setting. I'll obviously have to update this to the current port whenever I have to reconnect PIA for any reason.

My Router's port forwarding setting was hidden under Firewall > Virtual Servers. I followed the specific instructions on https://portforward.com/  and added a full range of allowed ports to my router so that it should cover any port when changed by PIA.

With all of this done I still cannot connect. But as I am a bit in the deep end with this, the issue might simply be some small oversight on my part, so I'll pick this up again when I can have a friend in IT assist me.

I'll post an update once I have followed up.

Sorry. I can't help with PIA too much because I don't have it but here's a website for testing open ports: https://canyouseeme.org/
This website will also tell you your IP when connected to the VPN server.

Whatever port you are using the URL will look similar.
Here's another example with port 3789 for the webUI.

https://1.2.3.4:3789/ or http://1.2.3.4:3789/


Since you are using a VPN, you don't have to and you shouldn't port forward on your home router. The reason for this is because your traffic is going through the VPN.

Your VPN's port forwarding is only relevant to your VPN connection route. Your router (ISP internet) connection is a separate entity. In other words: VPN port to only be used with VPN Server IP, router port to only be used with real external IP.
PS: Pathetic "port forwarding" support, totally borked. If you didn't succeed accessing your router (ISP) IP from outside (e.g. mobile data connection) then you will need another VPN or, after all, try one of these NAT hole punching solutions. Tell me which you'd prefer. Again, a VPN is the only solution for a complete Bittorrent connectivity. You do need 2 static ports since you can't change them in Tixati on demand.