The Ramblings of Ken

We all know what a proxy server does, right? A proxy server acts as a sort of path to the internet on a network that is not otherwise connected to the internet. Your computer talks to the proxy server, the proxy server requests the web page you are looking for, the web server sends the page back to the proxy server, and the proxy server sends the page to you.

What if you wanted to do the opposite? What if you have web servers that are not directly connected to the internet and you want to have them serve pages to the public? A reverse proxy can do this for you.

In my case, I have a live TV server on my home network that I want to make available on the public internet. I have made a post about Emby (formerly Media Browser) before. It's a great way to stream your live TV and recordings to your various devices. However, I decided that I wanted this traffic to be encrypted and I wasn't very happy with the way Emby handles SSL on its own.

Here is where a reverse proxy comes in. A full featured web server handles SSL much better than a standalone application can. I wanted to be able to plug in the automation of Letsencrypt to be able to conveniently renew my SSL certificate. I couldn't get this working with Emby itself. So, I turned on the IIS feature on my Windows box and setup the proper domain binding on the default website. Then, I installed the Application Request Routing extension for IIS. Then I enabled the proxy feature of the extension.

Then the URL Rewrite module needed to be installed. After installing, you need to create rules to work with Application Request Routing.

It worked beautifully! I also got the added benefit of not having to specify a port number in my URL anymore. My requests to my domain are now standard port 443 https requests. The requests then get proxied to the Emby app on port 8096 running on the same machine.

I anticipate that my reverse proxy setup will also come in handy to be able to proxy SSL traffic to multiple services that I am thinking about setting up on this box. IIS will be able to handle multiple domains coming in and proxy them to other applications. It's an absolute win-win scenario.

I need to post a follow up from my post almost a year ago about Windows Media Center.

In August my family resubscribed to cable. We have a college football addiction that cannot be cured with over the air TV. We got the Comcast X1 system on a promotion for two years. I was mostly satisfied with the service, but there were a few bugs with setting recordings and then having them not record. I also wasn't too happy with the picture quality on some channels. It sure seemed to become pixelated at times.

Even after getting cable, I was still using Windows Media Center to record some of the over the air programs that we enjoy. I then discovered software that plugs in to Windows Media Center to provide a web interface to stream your recorded shows and live TV over the internet. It was time to find a way to make this work with my cable!

I ordered the Silicondust HDHomeRun PRIME in December. It was a little bit of a pain to setup because you have to go to your cable provider and get a CableCARD to insert into the device. You'd think that they could activate the card at the office and then you just take it home and put it in and be off and running. The process is not that simple. You have to call in after you have the card installed and have the provider "pair" the card to the device that it is installed in. I called in and found someone who could do the pairing process. After about 30 minutes I was getting my cable channels on my Windows Media Center.

What a sight it was to see ESPN and all of the other premium cable channels on my Windows Media Center guide.

I have been blown away by the possibilities that the HDHomeRun PRIME has unlocked for me. Earlier in this post, I referred to plug-ins that can provide a web interface for streaming your content. I just recently moved from Remote Potato to Media Browser 3. These are both free plug-ins that integrate with Windows Media Center. I discovered Remote Potato first and used it for awhile to be able to remotely schedule programs to record when I am away from home and also to stream recorded content. However, it never really worked for live TV. While I was searching for a way to fix live TV on Remote Potato I discovered Media Browser 3. After installing the server program and the ServerWMC plug-in for Media Browser, live TV was streaming flawlessly in my browser!

For anyone who understands port forwarding and dynamic DNS, it is a really simple process to get all of this running over the internet. All of this can be done for the price of $10 for Windows Media Center on Windows 8 (it is free on Windows 7 Home Premium or above) and for about $100 for the HDHomeRun PRIME. Coincidentally, as I write this post, the HDHomeRun PRIME is $78 on Newegg.

If you desire to take your home entertainment and especially your recorded programs on the go with you, I highly recommend this setup with Windows Media Center and the HDHomeRun PRIME.