Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[dmitch77]

Short version: if I don't want to access my MC library from outside my LAN, and I don't want to connect MC to anything besides other MC instances in my LAN, is it OK (from MC's perspective) to disable UPnP on my WiFi router?

Long-ish version: I'm trying to beef up the security of my home network. I definitely know that I don't want or need UPnP for anything - other than, possibly, MC.  I have one computer which hosts an MC library, and other computers on my LAN, each running MC; these other MC instances load the MC library from the host, and play from that library locally. I never access my library from outside of my LAN. In this configuration, does MC need or use UPnP?

All machines are Macs running recent Monterey macOS. All are running up-to-date "stable" MC - i.e., today that would be 28.0.79.

Thanks.

[bob]

There would be 2 functions of uPnP that can come into play here.

The first is mostly used by gaming systems when they can send a UPnP request to the router to enable a port forward to that game console. I suspect this is what you are seeing. It should be fine to turn that off (in fact I'd never let that be on, it really can be a security hole).

The second case it if the router actually disables UPnP packets through the LAN between the wifi segments and the ethernet segments.
Turning this off would prevent discovery of your MC devices in the tree. Shouldn't be a problem if you added the MC library to a client by add library.
Finally if there are any DLNA renderers you would probably not be able to see them any more if this type of UPnP is disabled.

[dmitch77]

The first is mostly used by gaming systems when they can send a UPnP request to the router to enable a port forward to that game console. I suspect this is what you are seeing.

Not sure what you mean here, I'm not "seeing" anything. This is just intel-gathering for now, for a possible network upgrade.

Finally if there are any DLNA renderers you would probably not be able to see them any more if this type of UPnP is disabled.

Does this include using an MC instance as a renderer (i.e. as a Zone)?

Thanks.

[bob]

Not sure what you mean here, I'm not "seeing" anything. This is just intel-gathering for now, for a possible network upgrade.

Does this include using an MC instance as a renderer (i.e. as a Zone)?

Thanks.

"Seeing' as in what you would see looking at the router options.

MC as a zone will require uPNP not be filtered out on the LAN. Your router may or may not have that option.

To summarize, you might see one option, two options or no options for uPNP on your router.