I would love to be able to access my server from the office, and to check on my VM's as well. I am trying to figure out how to create an ssh tunnel into the network so I can do that but I am having difficulty.

 

Here is my setup:

Cable Modem: 20MBdown/5MBup

Apple AirPortExtreme Router

Unraid Box: Running XenServer 6.2 (until I have a weekend to switch everything to XenUnRaid6b4)

VMs: Unraid 5.4, three running Ubuntu 12.04-server (Plex, downloader, sick beard), one Windows 7

 

From inside the house I ssh into each of the boxes for maintenance, moving files via mc, etc. Right now, the box doesn't have any graphic output (waiting on Unraid6 before doing graphic pass-through).

 

I am looking for a way to use ssh to get into the home network safely. I was thinking about creating a VM that would serve as a gatekeeper and only it would be exposed to the outside world, set up a very strong certificate based login, and connect to the rest of network from there. But how to make that actually work is a little beyond me at this point.

 

If anyone can point me to a guide I have missed when google-dummy-searching I would appreciate it. Tips and pointers also very much appreciated too.

 

Thanks.

 

UPDATE: I totally figured this out. I set up one VM and port forwarded a random, rarely used port to 22 (the ssh) port on the Router. From there I set up certificate based authorization to login in to that VM. On my laptop, I set up connections to sick beard, sabnzbd+, and unraid's control panels using very simple tunneling. I set up aliases (a nice bonus learning point) so that now when I am at work, I type sickb_remote in terminal and then localhost:14001 in my web browser, and automagically I can see what my server is doing from anywhere, and it's all nice and secure. I still have to set up file sharing from a distance, but that should be pretty easy.

 

If anyone finds this and wants step by step instructions, let me know and I will post them here for everybody.

On your AirPort Extreme you just need to setup port mapping/forwarding. Choose a port you want to use for the public port and forward that port to private port 22 on the IP address of your server. I wouldn't recommend using port 22 as your public port though. Just pick something obscure thats not already in use. I use ports in the 8300 range as that's pretty open. Then when you want to connect outside your network you just specify the port like so:

 

ssh -p 8310 username@<your public ip>

 

 

Slighty off topic but I noticed you mentioned the following in your post:

 

VMs: Unraid 5.4, three running Ubuntu 12.04-server (Plex, downloader, sick beard), one Windows 7

 

Do you mean you have three separate Ubuntu VMs with each running one of those applications? If so, why? Why not run them all in the same VM? That's a big waste of system resources.

Choose a port you want to use for the public port and forward that port to private port 22 on the IP address of your server

 

That gets me to the "box" I set up port forwarding to on the router. Then from that box I ssh into the other "boxes"? I am having Inception headaches, but I am following this correctly?

 

Could I set up a port-forwarding/tunneling from/through the gateway box to use VPN into the Windows box in the same manner?

 

 

Do you mean you have three separate Ubuntu VMs with each running one of those applications? If so, why? Why not run them all in the same VM?

 

Yep. The downloader needs full time VPN; the Plex box is susceptible to all kinds of failures so it needs to be walled off so as not to cause trouble or have trouble caused to it; the PVR box is the catchall box. I also have ridiculously overbuilt my server so I've got plenty of resources to go around, so I don't notice much. Once I switch to unraid-6 I will probably trim things down a bit.

If you don't want to open up ssh on any of your VMs to the outside world I guess setting something up specifically for connecting from the outside world is what you'll have to do. A VM would work.

 

If you want a cool little project, you could buy a cheap little Raspberry Pi and set up a VPN server on it. Then you can VPN in to your home network from your phone or another computer or whatever. That's actually what I'm doing right now until I get my pfSense router set up. The nice thing about using the Raspberry Pi is that it's a separate device so on the off chance you ever need to reboot your entire server remotely, you wouldn't lose access to your home network while the VM with the VPN or ssh server was shut down. The RPi uses such a little amount of electricity to run 24/7 you won't even notice a difference on your electric bill.