Reaching your computers from another network

At home, your studio finds your other computers by name on the local network. When the other computer is somewhere else, say a Mac at the office while your studio is at home, there is no local network to look at. For that case the agent also waits at a small relay on the internet, and you pair with a short code instead of an address.

Partly built. Pairing and sessions through the relay were tried with a test agent against the real relay. Carrying a large project through it was not tried, and it may be slow.

What the relay is

The relay is a small program on AigoPilot's server, at relay.aigopilot.com:47700. It does one thing: when two computers name the same meeting room, it passes bytes from one to the other. It keeps no account, no file and no record of who spoke to whom. A computer never listens for the outside world. The agent dials out to the relay and waits there, the same way your studio does for your phone.

The lock between your two computers is made through that pipe, exactly as on the home network. The relay sees only locked bytes, cannot read or change them, and cannot stand in for either end. A stranger who finds a room gets a computer that answers nothing.

Nothing at your desk depends on it. With no relay, or with the relay down, your studio works as before on the network it is on.

Pair a computer on another network

The agent reaches the relay by itself. You do not have to set anything on it.

1. On the far computer, open the agent and click Show six digits. Under the digits it now shows a code of eight letters and numbers, such as ABCD-EF23. A line with it reads: "Is the studio on another network? Type this code in place of the address, with the six digits." Once the agent has connected to the relay, its window also says that a studio on another network reaches it through the relay.
2. In the studio, open Settings, then Computers. In the field under Add a computer, type the code in place of an address. Click I write the address or the code myself if the field is not showing.
3. Type the six digits and click Add.

The code only says where to meet. The digits still prove that you are sitting at that computer, and they work exactly as at home: wrong digits are refused and counted, and after three the computer makes new ones. The code is new each time the digits are shown, and letters that look alike (I, O, 0, 1) are never used.

After pairing

The studio remembers both ways to the computer: its home address, if it was found there, and the relay. It tries each in turn to the end of the lock, so a home address that happens to answer as a different machine does not break it. A computer that is only reachable through the relay is looked for on your network about every five minutes while the line is up, so that work you do at home does not keep going through the relay once you are in the same place.

If it does not work

• "No computer shows the code ... now." The code changes every time the digits are shown, and the agent must be open and showing them. Show the digits again and read the new code.
• The agent says "Studios on other networks cannot reach it now". It could not reach the relay, and it says why. It tries again by itself, so check that computer's internet connection and any firewall that blocks outgoing connections.
• The code is accepted but the digits are not. Read the digits again from the far computer. See Pairing two computers with six digits for how they work.
• The far computer was found but the line is slow. It is going through the relay, which is a long way round. Work that moves a lot of data, such as carrying a project, is better done while both computers are on one network. See Carrying a whole project to another computer.

The same relay serves the iPhone app when you are away from home; that article has the phone's side. For what to check when a computer does not answer at all, see A computer is out of reach.

Small tips

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