Hey guys,

 

I have a small unraid server running at my parents house that takes care of their backups and acts as another node for my Resilio network.

They switched internet providers a couple of months ago and are now stuck with a router that has port forwarding, but that I simply cannot get to actually work for more than a few days - IPv6 and all.

 

I'm not going to spend money on a decent router, as they themselves will have 0 benefits and it only affects my remotely managing unraid.

 

For now I'm running a Windows VM with Anydesk on it, but that stopped working a while ago after a Windows update that didn't let AD restart.

This solution normally works, but the ressources for one are quite significant for my little server, it's also just overkill AF.

I obviously don't want to directly expose the interface to the internet even behind a reverse proxy, which is impossible anyway due to no port forwarding, the same goes for Wireguard etc.

 

I've never gotten a Linux VM to work reliably with AD and I've tried a bunch.

 

Am I stuck with AnyDesk / Teamviewer etc?

What would be my most stable and low ressource solution? Are there premade/maintained dockers for this purpose that I haven't found yet?

 

Merry Christmas

Stefan

Have you tried the remote access feature of the My Servers plugin?  That would give you access to the Unraid web interface.

5 minutes ago, itimpi said:

Have you tried the remote access feature of the My Servers plugin?  That would give you access to the Unraid web interface.

I have. However, just like with a normal reverse proxy, I would still need to open a port for this to work, which the router simply doesn't allow.

 

There are solutions around that do not require port forwarding but not having used any of them myself I have no idea how successful they are.

1 minute ago, itimpi said:

There are solutions around that do not require port forwarding but not having used any of them myself I have no idea how successful they are.

What I've found when googling for "unraid remote access without port forwarding" is Cloudflare tunnels for example, but I think this is more appropriate for a specific service on the server rather than the web interface itself.

 

I need remote access for:

- running updates

 

And that's it. So a lightweight linux desktop with a web browser is all I need, if Anydesk is the way to go.

But no matter which distro/desktop I try, I keep running into issues with the window managers for a headless machine... none of the tutorials I've found online work...

 

I was hoping though that I'd simply overlooked a docker container with this specific purpose in mind...

 

 

The reason a reverse proxy (and the MyServers plugin) don't work AFAIK, is that they are simply DNS forwarders and tell your browser to connect to the public IP, which only works if I'm able to open the port(s).

AD/TV work because they actually route all traffic through their own servers, which is presumably why there are no plug-and-play freeware options.

 

I've looked at connecting the remote server via Wireguard to the main server, but all the guides require me to open ports on both sides.

Also, I would need the remote dockers to bypass Wireguard because I don't want their traffic having a single point of failure (main server).

Best would be VPN but if the router's that limited it's probably not an option.

 

7 minutes ago, Sayuuk said:

And that's it. So a lightweight linux desktop with a web browser is all I need, if Anydesk is the way to go.

But no matter which distro/desktop I try, I keep running into issues with the window managers for a headless machine... none of the tutorials I've found online work...

Try a Windows machine...

 

  

7 minutes ago, Sayuuk said:

there are no plug-and-play freeware options.

Rustdesk is a thing

Edited December 26, 20223 yr by Kilrah

I've a feeling that something like ZeroTier might work without the need for port forwarding.  Not used it myself so not sure.

2 hours ago, itimpi said:

I've a feeling that something like ZeroTier might work without the need for port forwarding.  Not used it myself so not sure.

I'm giving this a try. Installed in 2 minutes and seems to work just fine so far.

 

Thanks for pointing me towards it!

I'll update this thread if I run into any issues or need to change something, so if you don't read anything after this and are in the same situation, feel free to give it a shot!

 

Cheers and merry Christmas

Stefan