# Connecting to your chromecast

Find your chromecast's IP or hostname, and make sure you can reach it from any of these ways:
- `ping chromecast.home` (if this works, use `chromecast.home` as its hostname)
- or just `nmap -p8008,8009 192.168.1.0/24` or whatever network you're on, and find the device with both ports opened

# Casting videos

A first test which should fail: grab a random video file and run

  `cvlc --sout="#chromecast{ip=<your_chromecast_ip>}" <your_file.mkv>`

If it works on the first try, great. But you might get a "gnutls client error: [..] The certificate issuer is unknown".

# Trusting your chromecast's certificate

You need to grab its self-signed certificate and add it to your trusted certificate store:

  `openssl s_client -showcerts -connect <your_chromecast_ip> </dev/null 2>&1 | openssl x509 | sudo tee /etc/ssl/certs/chromecast.crt`

Re-run the same `cvlc` command. It should work, but if you get a "gnutls client error: [..] The name in the certificate does not match the expected" then go on.

# Talking to your chromecast using the hostname

The Common Name (CN) in your chromecast's certificate is its unique id. One (sad) way to allow a TLS connection to it is the following dirty trick: map its GUID to its IP in your `/etc/hosts` file, as if it were a hostname...

  `GUID=$(cat /etc/ssl/certs/chromecast.crt | openssl x509 -noout -subject | sed -e 's/ //g' -Ee 's/subject=cn=//I')`

  `echo "<your_chromecast_ip>  ${GUID}" | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts`

That's it, re-run the `cvlc` command one last time, and it should work.