Connect Sonos from office to home via VPN

USE CASE 3: You are a dealer and want to add a music service to your customer's Sonos system via VPN rather than rolling a truck to do it on site for them.

From a purely technical perspective, there is no restriction regarding a single subnet and/or physical presence in this sense. From a practical perspective, it is very hard to make it work, though.

You need to have a link that allows multicast traffic. The multicast traffic generated from Sonos has at least a TTL of 2, which means that it allow a minimum of one jump across nets. I have tried and tested this myself in a VLAN-segmented environment.

You might need a link that allows broadcast, for the initial pairing sequence (vol down + mute), but this pairing sequence is not always necessary in the latest software version in my experience.

Different equipment has different solutions to support this, and some just don't have any at all. UPnP relay, is one option that might work if you have already paired your controller and your players locally (the pairing is proprietary, not part of UPnP spec). Haven't tested it though, and requires one windows machine in each end. There might be other options for linux/os x.

Just FYI, this is not for the faint hearted, I spend a considerable amount of time to get this to work in a corporate network. Of course, if you find a mean to transparently bridge two different physical networks, all of this should just "work".

For those who come here and looking for a vpn that works:

Currently I have a Raspberry Pi at home with "SoftEther Server" running. When connecting with my laptop with the Sonos application using "SoftEther client" I get full control of the installation at home 🙂

Hi Steefph I just install a Softether also in my Raspberry pi But I can't connect to Sonos over my iPhone!! I haven't tried my computer yet!! If there's a specific setting in the SoftEther Server configuration to enable to use Sonos over the VPN? Thanks!!

ariel

For those who come here and looking for a vpn that works:

Currently I have a Raspberry Pi at home with "SoftEther Server" running. When connecting with my laptop with the Sonos application using "SoftEther client" I get full control of the installation at home :)

b) use scripts written in php, works fine, too, but only is for nerds. If you need more information, let me know (kram@cool.ms).


Can you elaborate more on the scripting process? What device do you run them on?

I would like a script for each of the following cases:

1) automatically setup groups, set specific speaker-level volumes, and play specific stations on each group

2) automatically turn off all music at a specific time

Best,
Adam

I have succeeded using a vpn on my qnap server, and using sonobit and quick sonos (widgets in app store) to control my sonos from outside. The control is quite limited, but I got tje system started when I was on holiday, and we forgot to start sonos before leaving (we always put music on when travelling away). It is not possible to regroup speakers og to change the source. But it is possible to start, stop, repeat/stop repeating, shuffling and advance to next song remotely.

So please....sonobit/quick sonos, will you prepare more advanced sonos controls as widgets?

Other ways of remotely control sonos?

Hi,

OpenVPN in TAP mode allows full access to Sonos.