Request - Static Remote Access URL

[IFireflyl]

I'm having some issues accessing my server remotely after changing to a new ISP. My new ISP doesn't offer static IP addresses, and the remote access URL that the My Servers plugin uses is dynamic. This means that every time my IP address changes, the remote access URL also changes. Is there no way for Unraid to generate a static URL for this instead of changing it based on the LAN IP address each time?

 

This is extremely frustrating for me, and it makes my remote access almost pointless. I am aware that I can log into Unraid first and go to the My Servers section to click the Remote Access link there, but this is less efficient, and, quite frankly, I don't want to do that. Dynamic URLs are a pain in the rear, and I would love it if this could be changed.

Edited December 27, 2022 by IFireflyl
fixed typos

[ljm42]

I'd recommend using the My Servers Dashboard:

https://forums.unraid.net/my-servers/

as your starting point, it will have the correct URL within about 10 minutes of it changing.

[IFireflyl]

@ljm42, I appreciate the response. However, that is the workaround I mentioned in my post that isn't the option that I am looking for. I have my Unraid website saved as a windowed shortcut via Chrome. This lets me pin my Unraid site to my taskbar and open it like it is a Windows app. If I do the same with the My Servers page then it ends up opening my Unraid in a different window. This defeats the point of me having the shortcut "app" as I might as well just open Chrome/Firefox and go into my bookmarks. Even with that I have to go to two links just to get to my server. The entire purpose of URLs are so that people can easily get to a destination. Having a constantly changing URL (my IP, and thus my My Servers URL, has changed three times in the last two weeks) is pointless.

[IFireflyl]

Would it be possible to change the LAN IP to the person's username? That's something that (ideally) shouldn't change. Or better yet, is there even a need for anything where the LAN IP currently is? Isn't the [hash].myunraid.net good enough since the [hash] should already be unique?

[tomtsang]

I believed DDNS-API solution (Docker) should be workable for you. And below comments just tells what I'd like to share, with no offenses.

 

16 hours ago, IFireflyl said:

Would it be possible to change the LAN IP to the person's username? That's something that (ideally) shouldn't change. Or better yet, is there even a need for anything where the LAN IP currently is? Isn't the [hash].myunraid.net good enough since the [hash] should already be unique?

I agreed but not all to this point, actually... there might be some out-of-control issues, when someone wants to get a special name, like [name].myunraid.net, it's not fair to others who wants the same name sometimes... Or...someone wants a different name instead of the username of this forums. BTW, as we know, we can access to My Server Plugins page and then access to our unraid server by clicking 'local access' or 'remote access', no need to remember the address [ip+hash].myunraid.net, so I think DDNS-API solution of which a domain that owned by end-user, or the automatic generated [hash].myunraid.net should be more equitable.

Edited December 31, 2022 by tomtsang

[IFireflyl]

@tomtsang, I am not sure what you're referring to when you say that DDNS-API should work for me. I use NGINX to allow me to access my My Servers URL (https://[LAN_IP].[hash].myunraid.net) by setting up a Redirection Host to forward [domain].com to my My Servers URL. I can no longer do this because the My Servers URL is constantly changing due to it using my (constantly changing) LAN IP as part of the URL. I also cannot create a Chrome shortcut using my My Servers URL as the shortcut stops working as soon as my IP address changes. Again, I don't want to have to go through additional steps of logging into Unraid's website just to get over to my server. The hash that is used in the URL is, as far as I am aware, unique to each My Servers user. If that is the case then I don't see the need to use the LAN IP, or have any prior information at all in the URL. It can just look like this:

 

https://[hash].myunraid.net

 

instead of looking like this:

 

https://[LAN_IP].[hash].myunraid.net

 

That would resolve the issue that I am having, and it would eliminate a pain point for those of us who don't have an option to obtain a static IP address.

[ljm42]

The ip.hash.myunraid.net naming scheme was designed with privacy in mind, so our DDNS server cannot be used to locate a given user's server. i.e. you have to know the IP in order to find the server.

 

We expect the My Servers Dashboard will make this a non-issue for most people.  I'm sorry if it isn't ideal for your use case, but we are putting privacy first on this one. 

[wambo]

I understand the idea about privacy, but its still a clear downgrade of other functionality - without the option to switch.

What I was wondering: was that supposed to be the internal (LAN) IP? I would've thought it should be the external (WAN) IP.
Isn't this also rather "flat" security, since the full Domain (inkl. the IP) is propagated to a big number of DNS servers?

What about making the DNS assignment optionally available as wildcard (= [IP].[HASH]... and [HASH]... would both work) ?

[IFireflyl]

16 minutes ago, ljm42 said:

The ip.hash.myunraid.net naming scheme was designed with privacy in mind, so our DDNS server cannot be used to locate a given user's server. i.e. you have to know the IP in order to find the server.

 

We expect the My Servers Dashboard will make this a non-issue for most people.  I'm sorry if it isn't ideal for your use case, but we are putting privacy first on this one. 

 

As much as it stinks for those of us with dynamic IP addresses, that does make sense. I own my own domain that I use to access my content on my NAS, and I found a workaround this morning. For anyone who might come across this in the future and is interested in how I got this working, I used NginxProxyManager and Cloudflare-DDNS.

 

Setup Cloudflare to point your domain to your IP address.

Create CNAME records in Cloudflare to access subdomains. These last two Cloudflare steps should look similar to this:

 

 

Setup Cloudflare-DDNS (docker) in Unraid so that it continually updates your IP address in Cloudflare.

Setup NginxProxyManager with Proxy Hosts to point the subdomains to your Unraid server's internal IP address and port. That should look like this:

 

 

I masked my internal IP address and the port (which goes after the colon) for privacy. I don't know how insecure this makes this (I'm interested to see if you think this is dangerous @ljm42), but I can now access my server from a subdomain of a domain I own (unraid.[domain].com).

Edited January 2, 2023 by IFireflyl

[ljm42]

7 minutes ago, IFireflyl said:

I don't know how insecure this makes this (I'm interested to see if you think this is dangerous @ljm42), but I can now access my server from a subdomain of a domain I own (unraid.[domain].com).

 

There are many ways to do reverse proxies, and many ways to mess them up  This is the reason we created the My Servers Remote Access feature, so we could offer a simple solution that would work for most people. You are welcome to use an alternate solution, but I can't really comment on it / support it.

 

One thing I will mention is that the My Servers client does not currently support reverse proxies, so you will get an error message when clicking on your username in the upper right corner of the page. We'll add support for that later, but at this point you'll probably want to uninstall the My Servers plugin if using your own reverse proxy.

[IFireflyl]

1 minute ago, ljm42 said:

One thing I will mention is that the My Servers client does not currently support reverse proxies, so you will get an error message when clicking on your username in the upper right corner of the page. We'll add support for that later, but at this point you'll probably want to uninstall the My Servers plugin if using your own reverse proxy.

 

Thanks for mentioning that as I would probably have noticed that at some point in the future and been concerned about it. Now that I know that is due to the reverse proxy it's not a big deal to me. I appreciate your patience with me on this one. Thanks for all you guys do. This Unraid hobby turned into something I can't live without.