RocketStream makes it very simple to find your external IP address: Simply click on the “About Uplink” or “About Station” tab. Your external IP address is listed there. For computers on a LAN, your internal LAN IP address will be different from your external IP address. Windows users can find their internal IP address by typing the command “ipconfig” at a command prompt. To use RocketStream Server or Station as a server with different external and internal IP addresses, you will need to configure port forwarding on your LAN router (see below).

RocketStream uses ports 9000 – 9002 for administration and handshaking and a range of ports beginning at 9100 for data. RocketStream Station users and RocketStream Server users expecting only a few concurrent connections should open port 9100 – 9110. RocketStream Server users expecting many concurrent connections should open up a broader range, for example from 9100 – 9199. RocketStream Uplink users may not need to open any ports. RocketStream Station and Server user should open these ports for both UDP and TCP. Also, users of RocketStream Station and Server who computers are behind LAN routers may need to set Port Forwarding on their routers to point their external IP address to their internal IP address.

The “OK” button remains grayed out until sufficient information has been entered to set up the Task. If you have completed the setup and the “OK” remains gray and unclockable, the most common problem is a syntactical issue with either the Local Folder or the Remote Folder entry. Here are some tips on the syntax:

• Both Local Folder and Remote Folder entries must end with a “/”.


• The Remote Folder entry must refer to a Custom Share that has been specifically defined as such on the remote server; it cannot refer to a generic share.


• The Remote Folder entry must use following syntax: [custom_share_name]:/… including the square brackets and followed by any path beneath the Share level.


• A Connection Profile must be selected to perform this Task using the dropdown menu. If the menu is empty, then a Connection first needs to be created.

In general, PDP is best for users on bandwidth connections below about 10 Mb/s, with latencies less than about 75 ms, or who cannot or don’t wish to open UDP ports. UDP is fastest in situations with high-bandwidth data pipes and/or large network latency. For a more precise view of which protocol is faster in a specific situation, refer to the figure below.

RocketStream allows both the client and the server to set a limit on the amount of data that RocketStream will use. Although RocketStream is “fair” to other traffic, Bandwidth Tuning may be desirable in corporate situations where other users are sharing the network connection and the system administrator specifically wishes to reserve bandwidth for those other uses.

Because the UDP protocol attempts to run as fast as it can, we explicitly recommend using Bandwidth tuning when using UDP, especially on pipes below 100 Mb/s. Typically, Bandwidth Tuning should be set to the data pipe size. Setting Bandwidth Tuning will keep the UDP protocol from “flooding” the pipe, which may result in a less efficient throughput (a sawtooth speed profile) or a dropped connection.

Bandwidth Tuning is easy to set. In the RocketStream Uplink and Station clients, it can be found in the “Edit Connections” menu. In the RocketStream Server and Station servers, it can be found in the “Edit User” or “Server Settings” menus.

Click the “Show/Hide Folders” icon (which looks like a group of stacked folders) to have RocketStream display all accessible drives. Clicking the icon again will return you to the folder contents view.

Access to remote or network resources, or lack thereof, is usually by-product of security settings. Since RocketStream access is based on the User Account under which RocketStream is running, that account must have access to the resource you wish to access.

By default, RocketStream Server runs under a local System account. That account rarely has access to remote resources, so you may need to change it to run under a Domain account in order to gain access to remote resources.

RocketStream Uplink and Station run under the account of the user that starts the application. Sometimes, all that is needed is to set the appropriate share access for that user.

You can also take steps to make the system treat the remote resource as a local resource. Note that these steps do not move any data; they only create virtual references to the actual resource.

Under the Windows Operating Systems, you can Map a remote resource so that it appears as a local drive. This feature can be found under:

Windows Explorer > Tools > Map Network Drive

Under Linux or Mac Operating Systems, you can mount a remote resource from a command/terminal prompt. The mount commands come in many varieties and have many parameters. Here is a sample mount command:

mount_smbfs//[User]:[Password]@[Server]/[Share]/[SharePath]/[LocalPath]

The particular mount command above uses Samba protocols to access a server share on your network. [User] and [Password] represent valid security credentials on [Server], which can be identified by DNS Name or IP Address. For example, a a command to locally access a BackUp folder shared on server ABC123 (IP Address 123.45.6.78) under a Users folder might look like this:

mount_smbfs //admin:adminpassword@123.45.6.78/BackUp /Users/BackUp

On Mac Operating Systems, be sure to mount the resource somewhere under the root node. Otherwise, it will not be accessible by RocketStream. Locations like /Volumes are not accessible to RocketStream.