Web Orbiter

A Web Orbiter is any device (such as a laptop, PC, etc.) that accesses the Orbiter user interface (UI) through a Web browser.

Setup

The procedure to setup a Web Orbiter is simple but the order of steps is important.

1. First of all, add a new Generic Web Device as a Child Device for your Core:
   1. Goto the LinuxMCE Admin website-->Show devices tree-->CORE. The CORE's detail page should appear.
   2. Click 'Create Child Device'.
   3. In the Add child device window, click the button 'Pick device template'. The new pop-up window contained device templates will be opened.
   4. In the 'Device Category' dropdown list, choose 'Peripherals'.
   5. In the 'Device Template' dropdown list, find and select "Generic Web Device".
   6. Click the button 'Pick Device Template'. The Add Child Device Window will close, and the Generic Web Device will be added to the Core, as the updated Device Tree will show.
   7. A new Generic Proxy Orbiter will also be created automatically. Watch the Orbiter generation process on the Orbiters page: Wizard-->Devices-->Orbiters.
2. Wait till the Orbiter generation procedure finishes. A message on an active Orbiter or on the Orbiter page will indicate when it has completed.
3. Do a "Quick reload router". Otherwise, the Orbiter won't work properly.

Access to the Web Orbiter

From within your home

You can access the Web Orbiter from any web browser (Mozilla Firefox, IE, Safari):

• In the browser address bar, type the URL http://<core_ip>/pluto-admin/weborbiter.php.

• From within the "internal" LinuxMCE LAN, for example:

http://192.168.80.1/pluto-admin/weborbiter.php

(This assumes the IP address range set by default at installation.)

• From the "external" home LAN, the core_ip would be the LAN IP address of the core. If, for example, the core is at 192.168.0.50 on the home LAN, use:

http://192.168.0.50/pluto-admin/weborbiter.php

Note: To use this method, Outside Access must be enabled.

• You can also use the network name of the Core in place of the IP address. For example, if the Core was named "dcerouter" during the default installation, you could use:

http://dcerouter/pluto-admin/weborbiter.php

From the Internet

You could use the IP address:port for your home LAN, with port forwarding to the Core's LAN IP address (enabled by your home LAN router).

• This is an advanced topic and may not be fully implemented or secure in the current version..

By default, LinuxMCE is not accessible outside your home. This makes the system secure, but it prevents you from accessing the web site via the Internet while away from home. You can turn on Internet access, allowing access to the admin website anywhere. For your own security, however, we recommend you first read about Security & Privacy Issues.

Login page

• A simple login page should be displayed. Input an existing user name and password, then click "Login".
• From the dropdown list of devices, choose Generic Web Device.
• A page that looks similar to this should appear:
  

Troubleshooting

Connect failed

If you try to connect to the Web Orbiter and see this message: "Connect to proxy orbiter failed, please try again", this means that Orbiter generation hasn't finished yet, or that you forgot to do a quick restart of the router.

Size

I was able to change the size of the rendered image in the Wizard-->Orbiters page. Find the Web Orbiter device in the list and resize it. After another orbiter regen, it was the right size for me. (Source http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=3833.0)

Problems with rapid refresh rate

Problem: When using the Web Orbiter over the Internet (instead of from within my home LAN), it refreshed every 5 seconds, making it difficult to use. The images were repeatedly downloaded each time.

Solution:

• Go to LinuxMCE Admin Website-->Device tree-->CORE-->Generic Web Device.
• Set the RefreshInterval to a higher value (I used 60 seconds for mine).