Remote Ticket Printing-Ethernet and Local Lan

This setup assumes that your remote router is to be connected to a local network at the remote site -- and that it gives out IP addresses that you can control. If using a Mobile Thumb Drive to connect to the internet, refer to the alternate instructions for mobile/ethernet because this setup will not work.

Things you will need:

  • A Printer with an Ethernet connection
  • A portable router other then those in the current network.
  • Your postgres server set to allow connections from the remote location
  • A relatively high speed internet connection at both ends

This installation assumes that your remote router is to be connected to a local network at the remote site and port 10001 can be configured. If using a Mobile Thumb Drive to connect to the internet, refer to the alternate instructions for mobile/ethernet because this setup will not work.

Setup:

  1. A portable router that can be taken to the offsite location will be needed.
  2. Set an internal IP addresses of the portable router that is the SAME subnet range as the office network. As an example, if in the office the IP range is 192.168.0.x, then the IP addresses behind this portable router should be the same 192.168.0.x. This will ensure the Printer can be used in both networks without having to alter it's IP address.
  3. Take the router, printer and computer to the offsite location. Plug everything into the portable router.
  4. Use Teamviewer to remotely access a computer in the main office.

    5. *** at this point all should work, except, the printer WILL NOT.

  5. Enter a NAT forwarding rule in the router that forwards port 10001 to the IP address of the ticket printer. For example if your printer is at 192.168.0.15, then make a rule that forwards 10001 to that IP address.
  6. At the remote site, find out what the external IP address of the outside router is. This can be done by visiting www.whatismyip.com. In this example lets say the external IP is 77.12.34.56. This is where the internet thinks the router is located.
  7. In Theatre Manager click the Preference button at the top of the window (the yellow cog). Select the Ticket Printers tab. The IP displayed will most likely be the internal IP address of the Ticket Printer.
  8. Change the IP address of the ticket printer to the address supplied in step 6 above.
  9. Test print a ticket.

What you've effectively done is told Theatre Mananager to send the ticket info outside your office and all the way along to your router. Your router then says, not me, pass it inside the router to your printer (using the NAT rule).

When the ticket printer returns to the office the machine that was accessed remotely using TeamViewer will need to have the Preferences updated. Log back into Theatre Manager and click the Preference button. Select the Ticket Printers tab and change the IP address back to the address within the local network. Each time the ticket printer is taken offsite you can use an online service (Example: https://mxtoolbox.com/whatismyip/) to determine the IP address to be entered for the ticket printer.

Diataxis: 
How To