UPnP & Chromecast

jsquyres

I am seeing a very similar situation: I have a pfsense connected to a switch, which, in turn, has an AP hanging off it. Client isolation is disabled.

When going through the Chromecast setup, I can see that it gets a DHCP lease for a short period of time, and I can even nmap it:

Starting Nmap 6.25 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2013-09-03 22:02 EDT
Nmap scan report for chromecast.example.com (192.168.10.112)
Host is up (0.024s latency).
Not shown: 998 closed ports
PORT     STATE SERVICE
53/tcp   open  domain
8008/tcp open  http
MAC Address: D0:E7:82:BC:2B:CF (Unknown)

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 5.19 seconds

I can see that it has a DHCP lease from pfsense; I can even telnet to 192.168.10.112:8080 and elicit basic HTTP responses.

But the Chromecast setup app then says it can't find the Chromecast, and gives up. Eventually, the Chromecast itself gives up (I guess it times out waiting for the Chromecast setup app to contact it) and goes back to flashing its LED and initiating the startup process again.

It very much looks like the Chromecast setup app simply cannot find the Chromecast once the Chromecast joins the wifi and is ready to accept incoming connections.

Is there something special that needs to be done in the pfsense configuration?

jimp

If the communication is between devices in the same subnet, then no, it wouldn't ever hit the firewall.

As others mentioned, it really does sound like AP Client isolation is on, but if your AP claims it is off, you may want to test that another way: Take any two devices on wireless and see if you and ping/reach each other.

I just got a notice that my Chromecast shipped today, should have it on Monday (give or take, if the estimate is right). I have the same sort of setup you have - pfSense at the edge, switch with AP and other things involved. I'll give it a spin and see what I can do.

jsquyres

FWIW, I have done multiple things to prove to myself that wifi client isolation is off:

ping one wifi host from another
ping the broadcast address, see several wifi clients reply
telnet to my chromecast port 8080 from another wifi device (in the brief window where it consumes a DHCP address before it goes back to setup mode)

Let us know what you find when you get yours.

Thanks!

kejianshi

Has it occurred to anyone that Chromecast might be a broken POS that isn't quite ready for the world?

jimp

@kejianshi:

Has it occurred to anyone that Chromecast might be a broken POS that isn't quite ready for the world?

I'm sure it has, though it's still rather new/early. Google has been pushing updates for it "improving" it as they go.

So I wouldn't say "broken POS" but more like "in the early adopter stage of its lifetime".

Po-tay-to, po-tah-to… :-)

kejianshi

Well - So long as they don't start selling ChromcastReady routers and APs that you MUST use for the service to magically work…

doktornotor

@kejianshi:

So long as they don't start selling ChromcastReady routers and switches that you MUST use for the service to magically work…

Not needed. Providing no content outside of U.S. serves this purpose just fine. They even blocked streaming content from Android phones.

jimp

They didn't block it, they updated the API and the streaming apps needed to catch up to the new API.

Still, it's all beyond the scope of this thread - this is just trying to make it work, not debating its merits.

stephenw10

I'll be following this closely. No chance of getting a Chromecast though, yet.
I could believe it's an issue with the AP somehow interfering with broadcast or multicast.
Since most of what the chromecast is meant to do is stream stuff directly, rather than from another wifi device, I could also believe it wants to open firewall holes and be accessible from Google HQ via UPNP.
I could just about believe the setup app. just asks some google server 'is there a chromecast at my address?' and the server looks for it. If UPNP isn't working it won't find one. Seems like asking for a huge number of support calls though. ;)

Steve

kejianshi

Well - With the sheer numbers of us online here with adequate bandwidth and every last one of us running pfsense with openvpn, you would think that with a tiny bit of cooperation we could place-shift our IPs to be wherever we want to be to dodge content filtering.

Maybe I'll try it at my brother's house. His is giving him issues.

jsquyres

I figured out my issue.

And to be totally clear: this had nothing to do with pfsense.

It wasn't "client isolation" in my WAP, per se, but the fact that my Cisco Aironet WAP was interfering with multicasting. I found the solution here: http://forums.androidcentral.com/google-chromecast/301720-issue-chromecast-cisco-aironet-1140-a.html (i.e., disabling igmp snooping).

Thanks for all the suggestions; they were helpful in tracking down the real issue.