UPnP goes open source

A few weeks have passed since we announced the UPnP console, which is based on the same code that is used by the download applet to configure port mappings on your router.

Although UPnP should be a standard protocol, the code we wrote should be tested against as much hardware as possible, and not just our home routers. ;)

As some of you may know, we've been long considering open sourcing parts of BitLet.
We thought the UPnP library we developed for bitlet would be an ideal candidate to start with. It is quite small and synthetic, it solves a widely diffused need and it would benefit from further testing.

We called the library weupnp, and we published it under a LGPL licence. Feel free to adopt it if it suits your needs or to contribute to it.

Click here to access the code.

And... we're back: UPnP console!

We break radio silence to announce our latest update: the UPnP console!

As you might have noticed, BitLet is able to communicate with UPnP-enabled gateways to request incoming connection forwarding (as this generally improves download performance).

Since this feature appears to be working fine, we thought it'd have been great to expose it as a stand-alone component.


The console is a tool that allows you to discover your UPnP-enabled router, and manage its port mappings without the need to access its administration interface.
With just a couple of clicks, you can ask your router to forward inbound connections (on the ports you specify) to the machine you're sitting at.

You can find more information (and a brief explanation of why this is useful) here.

Just a small notice: this feature is highly experimental. Although UPnP is a standard protocol, we've been able to test the console against a limited number of gateway devices.

Please post on the feedback forum if you encounter any issue.