Remote access to Vera Lite - secure

Community Playground Getting Started & Initial Setup
1

Hello

When i am outside of my home i want to go directly to my Vera Lite, not via MiOS.

I can get this to work, i forward port 80 of the vera module in my ISP router and I can access my vera lite correctly when i am outside. Only thing is: it is not protected by username and password,any one can get in :o

I searched the forum and Wiki, and for Vera 1 and 2 i can find some instruction on how to make username and password compulsory, but this option is not available in Vera Lite with UI5. Within the USER tab i would expect that i could configure that remote access is only possible by providing username and Pw.
Via cp.mios.com this works OK but how do I get this to work if I go directly to my Vera box when i am remote?

2

Don’t do this. All traffic to/from Vera is over unencrypted HTTP, which makes it very easy for anyone between you and your Vera (e.g., the Internet Café that you are at) to glean your password.

If you want to securely access your Vera without using MCZ’s servers, you will end up re-implementing cp.mios.com.

Another approach is to set up a VPN server on your LAN, so that all unencrypted traffic is on your LAN only. This is what I do.

The forum contains many discussions about exactly this. I have answered this question before, better.

3

Futzle

Thanks for your advice. i will stick with cp.mios for the moment :slight_smile:

4

The other option is to poke a hole in your fire wall at home for port 22 (SSH) on the Vera lite. The SSH user name is root and the password is on the bottom (at least on the Vera2 that’s where it is) of the Vera2.

Then use something like ConnectBot (on Android) to do a secure tunnel. You can setup a port forward to Vera’s port 80 and also to other local resources like cameras on your home network.
And everything is safe. You reference things from local ports on your smart phone that are forwarded through the tunnel to Vera.

You need an SSH server inside your House for this to work … And Vera has one.
This will also work with any computer in your house that has a running SSH servers.
This is a little more difficult on the Windows platform.

The Vera3 and Lite should have plenty of power to do a little more network processing.

5

If you are on a Mac by chance, and have an extra Mac at home, I recommend Slink from Slinkware.com.

Not only does it allow you to SSH back in your network at home easily, it will allow you to see all services on your home network as if they were on your local network, wherever you are. And makes an encrypted bridge for Firefox to browse using your home internet connection.

More info here:

http://slinkware.com/features/

I use it all the time, and it’s like I am connecting to Vera locally, but it’s secure.

6

I assume if anyone with Windows wants to try this, then PuTTY should work also since it can be configured as an SSH proxy!

I’m away from home at the moment, but might try this myself in a couple of weeks (currently no access to my router to set this up)

7
PuTTY should work also since it can be configured as an SSH proxy
I did not think Putty ran as a service ... So you have to be logged in for this to work. There are SSH services around for Windows ... not as simple to use as Putty.