Access Sonos from a different wireless network

  • 25 June 2018
  • 6 replies
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Userlevel 3
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I have a Ubiquiti Unifi setup at home with multiple VLANs and wireless networks. All of my Sonos speakers are connected to the IoT wireless network (which in turn is associated with the IoT VLAN).

My phone and laptop are on another wireless network, called Home (which is connected to the main LAN). I have firewall rules in place to block cross-VLAN communication but I do allow devices on the Home LAN to communicate with the IoT VLAN (the connection has to initiate on the Home LAN).

Obviously when I open the Sonos app on my phone, it can't find any devices until I connect my phone to the IoT wireless network. Is there any way for me to get this working so that I can use the Sonos controller on the Home wireless network with the Sonos equipment on the IoT wireless network?

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6 replies

Userlevel 4
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UPnP (which Sonos uses) is initiating connections both ways, which means that you need to allow certain connections from your IoT to your Home network.

In addition to that, you also need to allow/forward multicast or broadcast between Home and IoT. I think there are people that has managed to set this up using Unifi, but for a breakdown on what is needed, You could look at this post: https://en.community.sonos.com/troubleshooting-228999/multiple-subnets-vlans-and-sonos-workable-clavister-solution-30950

Nowadays I think discovery also try to use broadcast (255.255.255.255) which might be sufficient to get this working without mucking around with the specific multicast address used for SSDP, that might be easier. This might be of interest:

https://community.ubnt.com/t5/UniFi-Routing-Switching/Configure-Sonos-across-subnets-on-USG/td-p/1979899
https://community.ubnt.com/t5/EdgeRouter/Multicast-Sonos-Phorus-amp-Play-Fi-Broadcast-255-255-255-255-lt/td-p/1259616

Not sure if these instructions take into account that Sonos now would suffice with broadcast across VLANS (given the right ports are open/available), that might simplify the actual configuration you need to do on your USG.
Userlevel 3
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Thanks, I got it working by enabling mDNS on the USG and following the IMGP proxy guide at https://blog.awelswynol.co.uk/2017/11/unifi-sonos-and-vlans
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Thank you for following up on what worked your you - I also have UniFi hardware and need to separate my IoT stuff. Out of curiosity do you use the same SSID across VLANs?
Userlevel 4
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Thank you for following up on what worked your you - I also have UniFi hardware and need to separate my IoT stuff. Out of curiosity do you use the same SSID across VLANs?

The SSID is usually what separates wireless traffic into different VLANs, so I don't even think that it would be possible to use the same SSID across VLANs (or you make a major design flaw when setting up your WiFi access points, mixing SSID -> VLAN mapping on different access points)
Solved this for me as well - thanks!
Userlevel 1
is anyone able to point me to a guide for this on cisco devices?