Have you ever forgotten to set your TiVo to record a program? With the ability to administer TiVoWebPlus remotely, you'll never miss a recording again (assuming you have internet access away from home). The following assumes you have already used PTVNet to enable networking, you have a router, and you know the internal IP address(es) of your TiVo(s).

1. Go to DynDNS and get a free DNS name. This is especially important if you have a dynamic IP address. There are several software utilities listed on the site that can alert DnyDNS if your IP address changes. Certain Linksys routers have the capability to do this built into the firmware (usually third-party firmwares). If you have a static IP address, you can use DynDNS's Static DNS instead (also free).


2. Go to TiVoWebPlus from within your LAN.


3. Click on Hackman.


4. Click the Commands Page button.


5. Click "To enable these backdoor features on boot, go to preferences." If Hackman asks for a password, enter "password."


6. Under "File to be edited," choose "/ptvupgrade/tivowebplus/tivoweb.cfg," and click the "Edit a file" button.


7. In tivoweb.cfg, choose a user name and password (highly recommended for remote administration). You can leave the Port at 80, or, better yet, change it to a different one, such as 8888. Whatever port you choose, you will need to forward that port in your router. If you have multiple TiVos you need to access remotely, you'll need to use a different port for each one (8888, 8889, 8890, etc.)


8. After you have made the changes to tivoweb.cfg, click the Save button. For the changes to take effect immediately, click on "Restart" and choose "Full Reload" from the TiVoWebPlus menu at the top of the window. It will take a few minutes for TiVoWebPlus to restart.


9. Log into your TiVo(s) to confirm the new setting(s). For example, go to http://192.168.1.2:8888. If you chose a user name and password for TiVoWebPlus, enter them into the fields in the popup box. Do this for each TiVo you made changes to. If everything works, continue to the next step.


10. Go to PortForward.com, click on Common Ports, and choose "Apache" as the program to port forward for (ignore port 443). Note that if you changed the TiVoWebPlus port to something other than 80, change the reference to 80 to reflect that fact (8888, if you used the one I suggested). Choose your router from the list, and following the specific instructions. Repeat for any additional TiVos you set up for remote access.


11. Go to http://your.dynamic-dns.name:8888 (you can leave out the colon and port if you left the port in tivoweb.cfg at 80).

Assuming you have port forwarding (and tivoweb.cfg) set up correctly, you should now be logged into your TiVo, remotely. You can now manage your recordings and Season Passes away from home. If you have multiple TiVos, repeat this with those as well.

Note: some older routers do not support "loopback" and will not allow you to connect to another computer (or TiVo) on your LAN using your external IP address (or domain). In this case, you will need to test the above from a computer outside your LAN.

For certain Linksys routers, you need to make sure that "Filter Internet NAT Redirection" (in the Firewall settings) is not checked for "loopback" to work.

For Linksys WRT54GS users running the latest version of Thibor (or any other router that supports port redirection), you can set up TiVoWebPlus for remote administration without changing port numbers in tivoweb.cfg (a user name and password are still recommended). The following is for a WRT54GS running Thibor's firmware:

1. Go to the router's Setup page.


2. Click on "Applications and Gaming."


3. Click on "Port Redirection."


4. For each TiVo you want to access, choose an external port, such as 8888,8889,8890, etc. (a separate one for each TiVo). For the internal port in each case, enter 80. Make sure the protocol for each is TCP, the appropriate internal IP address is entered, and that the "Enable" box is checked in each case.


5. Proceed with step 11 (above).