routed network

Hello Steve,

While there may be a technical solution to your question, this would be a very advanced setup, and it is something we can not provide support for.

Therefore I have to inform you that Sonos will only work and can only be controlled if your smartphones/computers are on the same subnet/IP address range.

Regards,

Bjorn L.

Ok, can you please provide some basic technical details on the network protocol being used? For example, it's pretty clear that the sonos app on my mac is connecting via TCP to the bridge across a routed network (the laptop was plugged into the wired network and is now on the wireless network, and those two networks are routed not bridged). Some information about what kind of packets need to be forwarded between networks would make it a lot easier for us geeks to solve this... but if you're gonna make me break out a network sniffer, I guess I'll do it.

Bjorn L wrote:

Hello Steve,

While there may be a technical solution to your question, this would be a very advanced setup, and it is something we can not provide support for.

Therefore I have to inform you that Sonos will only work and can only be controlled if your smartphones/computers are on the same subnet/IP address range.

Regards,

Bjorn L.

This is a horrible implementation Sonos! "very advanced setup" ...no it's not, it's just a routed network. He's asking which network services can be used to make this work. 

I agree with Brent_8 - has this been fixed yet? I'm suffering exactly the same problem after upgrading my home network. Seems this is a problem experienced by you best customers who have purchased the most Sonos devices. You think it would be worth putting some time into this to help! I may end up selling them it I can get them working across two subnets.

It's not a question of 'fixing'. Sonos is based on UPnP. The discovery mechanism, SSDP, is predicated on UDP multicasts to the local subnet.

The proportion of Sonos home users with deliberately segmented networks must be tiny. (There are plenty who segment their networks unintentionally.) Your best bet is to organise things such that each Sonos system ('household') is contained within a single subnet. If necessary use multiple Sonos households.

I have three LANs here, my simple solution was to put the Sonos devices and the gear Sonos needs to connect to on one of the LANs while using the other two for things that don't need Sonos access.

I won't promise this will work but I'd think it is a good possibility. You could look at establishing additional physical LANs (as I did) or VLANs and add protocol bridging rules in your router where necessary. You will learn a good bit about networking doing that but I'd expect you to have to go to a networking forum, not here for the education.

I run two physical LANs, cascaded.

Also see https://en.community.sonos.com/troubleshooting-228999/multiple-subnets-vlans-and-sonos-workable-clavister-solution-30950

@ratty: Multiple IP networks are not unusual, even a little bit. Every wifi router you buy today has a Guest network. I would love to let my Guests use my Sonos without giving them keys to the rest of my network.

I, however, am not holding my breathe for this feature. I have been a Sonos customer and avid supporter for over 2 years (yes, a relative newbie), and I tell everyone that I recommend it to a few things:
1. Don't expect any new significant features from any of your wish lists.
2. They canned their eng. staff.
3. The CEO jumped ship.
4. And, despite making the best sounding whole home speaker system in the world, they have decided they are going to be in the Smart Speaker, no Streaming Music, no, I don't know what market, it's hard to merge all those threads.
5. Love it for what it is (which is great) and pray that someone picks all of the pieces some day and starts to innovate again.

@accguy

IMO your assessment of the company's policies and prospects is irrationally bleak. And I simply don't understand "Streaming Music, no". That's squarely where Sonos are positioning themselves market-wise.

As for enabling use of Sonos via a guest SSID, where are the Sonos units actually going to connect? Guest SSIDs typically apply client isolation. A device attached to one can only see the router: no other wireless clients and definitely nothing on the main home LAN.

ratty wrote:

@accguy

IMO your assessment of the company's policies and prospects is irrationally bleak. And I simply don't understand "Streaming Music, no". That's squarely where Sonos are positioning themselves market-wise.

As for enabling use of Sonos via a guest SSID, where are the Sonos units actually going to connect? Guest SSIDs typically apply client isolation. A device attached to one can only see the router: no other wireless clients and definitely nothing on the main home LAN.

My point exactly. Don't get too wound up waiting for your pet feature.

Yes, I know how routing and networking operate. I have been designing and implementing enterprise IP networks for over 35 years. And again, I am not going to wait for the streaming music company I bought my speakers from to develop a solution to allow those speakers to operate on a increasingly ubiquitous network configuration. If only there was a company that specialized in networked speakers... hmmm... There could be a market there.

Sigh.

If such a company's USP was operation over routed networks they'd have to hope for substantial B2B sales. Most homes have a simple flat subnet, off the ISP-supplied gateway box. The occupants have better things to do with their lives than worry about the niceties of routing.

ratty wrote:

If such a company's USP was operation over routed networks they'd have to hope for substantial B2B sales. Most homes have a simple flat subnet, off the ISP-supplied gateway box. The occupants have better things to do with their lives than worry about the niceties of routing.

We can ignore the Guest network setting on just about every consumer grade wifi router on the market. We can also ignore the security benefits of using it. However, doing so does not make them go away, not true, or not worth using / implementing.

And yes, there are better things to do than to have to worry about the routing, which is exactly why we need the vendors of our luxury appliances and devices (yup, $200 to $700 per speaker is a luxury item in my book) to make those issues go away.

I've been here a long time, and this is the very first time I've seen the request that Sonos be accessible from a Guest network. Matter of fact, we usually recommend Guest networks for people who want to limit access from guests. So while ignoring the Guest network may not make it go away, I highly doubt Sonos is missing significant sales if they continue ignoring this request. Nor is it any evidence that Sonos no longer innovates.

This seems to be a strange request. I would rather my networked speaker stay within a designated broadcast domain and minimize potential vulnerabilities (in both directions). With that said, it would seem someone diving into the application of multiple subnets in their home network could tackle the associated topics of multicast, bridging, relaying or various other methods of custom configurations. I find it hard to believe there are many users out there in this situation. There are several Linux based routers, firewalls, proxy servers and NMSs out there. I would be interested in hearing more about the home configurations requiring actual L3 traversal and not having the ability to keeps their Sonos on the same network.

In contrast to some posters above, I have a positive outlook on Sonos. This company does not charge for services, upgrades, licensing or support. You simply buy their product and they support it. You get software updates, bug fixes, multiplatform apps and streaming services. All the devices are compatible and very few hardware revisions are made. The product is easy to use and can easily be setup by users with the most minimal of technical skill. I purchased my first Sonos speakers last year and had this realization of the underlying product support and true value provided. With all things considered, I quickly expanded my investment in their products.

I can't think of another (tech) company providing the same level of product quality and support.

The solution most have come up with is to use an IGMP Proxy service to pass the necessary multicast data between networks to allow Sonos to function between two (or more?) different subnets. If you refuse to accept this as a solution only because you want Sonos to figure it out for you, then it's only your loss because the likelihood that Sonos is going to implement something that less than 1% of their customers want is slim to none.

And I'm with jgatie... I've been around here for a few years and never once seen a request from someone that wants what you're doing. Others have wanted to use Sonos across subnets (though not necessarily for guest use), and have been more than happy to implement it themselves with an IGMP proxy.

Agree. This is a networking problem, not a device issue - and Sonos boxes seem to be well behaved network connected devices. Mike, can you save me the research and provide some pointers as to the parameters for such a proxy. I'm assuming my Ubuntu router can run such a server.

An IPv6 packet walks into a bar carrying a duck. The barman exclaims that pigs arn't allowed in his bar. The packet says "it isn't a pig, it's a duck!" to which the barman says - "I was talking to the duck".