Hi,

 

it's been a while...had to deal with 2 major moves (still working on that), and the months just whizzed on by.

 

when i was last standing next to my unRAID box about 6-8 months ago, i left it at a friend's web-development firm in Berlin, which has a symmetrical 100Mb pipeline, and which he graciously lets me use to house my unRAID.

 

in the past i have always had it connected to a Mac Mini or iMac, which i would Screen Share into in order to do all of my maintenance and data-shuffling tasks, as i am not comfortable with the command-line and always liked being able to see the browser window with the unRAID webGUI running in it, on a remote desktop which i could call up on my local desktop wherever in the world i happen to be.

 

it was smooth sailing until first my Mac Mini gave up its ghost, which i then replaced with an iMac 20"...when i was last in Berlin 6-8 months ago, i found the iMac to have also given up...won't even turn on anymore...and this is where i am now.

 

i only have tomorrow to deal with this, and don't have the time to fix the iMac or the money to buy another "head-unit"...so this is where my question comes in:

 

is there an "easy" way to access the unRAID system remotely *without* another computer serving as head-unit? the IT guy here said that he could expose it to me via VPN, which i understand to be much more secure than simply exposing it via any other means.

 

since i only have the day tomorrow and still have 22hrs on a parity check until then, what would the best use of my (and his) time be, before i leave again, probably for months?

 

it seems that since installing unRAID OS v6 (i am currently on 6.0.1), all sorts of amazing things *would* be possible if i had the time and know-how (such as running a VM on it, which could act as a "head-unit", if i understood that correctly), but like i said, it's not something that i think can be done before the end of day tomorrow.

 

what would ideally need to happen to give me as much remote control as possible, and what is realistically possible in an 8hr day of having physical access to the box tomorrow?

 

not sure whether i asked all the right questions, but i hope you understand the situation i find myself in...i just don't wanna have to take the box with me again, and lose out on the opportunity to see it housed at a friend's web-dev firm with amazing bandwidth and a knowledgeable IT guy in-house.

is there an "easy" way to access the unRAID system remotely *without* another computer serving as head-unit? the IT guy here said that he could expose it to me via VPN, which i understand to be much more secure than simply exposing it via any other means.

 

since i only have the day tomorrow and still have 22hrs on a parity check until then, what would the best use of my (and his) time be, before i leave again, probably for months?

Given what you have to work with, I'd spend the time getting the VPN up on whatever machine you carry with you, and a tutorial from the IT guy on setting up the VPN on other machines you may need to use later. Once you have VPN access properly set up, it is like being on the same physical network with your box, just like your old mac "head-unit". All tasks can be accomplished exactly the same as you are accustomed.

i think you're right, jonathan...the parity check should be finished by noon tomorrow, and after that i'll upgrade to the newest stable version and focus on getting VPN access to it from the outside.

 

do you know whether there is a way to run something like "TeamViewer" on unRAID? what's probably the difficult thing there is that unRAID doesn't really have a GUI desktop that a remote desktop client/app like TeamViewer serves out, right? but maybe there are other solutions that accomplish the same thing on a software-only basis, rather than a separate head-unit?

i faintly remember having gotten to work some sort of virtual terminal remote access to my unRAID box last year, but forgot how and what exactly that was...is there such a thing a "v-term" and invoking it via the iTerm app on Mac, essentially being able to see what would usually require an LCD monitor during a reboot? that would at least give me certainty that i could do lower-level work on it, when necessary...maybe invoking the webGUI via a VPN connection could allow me to do all the rest (save for hardware issues/upgrades, of course).

As was mentioned, the a VPN would give you the same access as you would have if on the unRAID local LAN and can do it in a secure way across the Internet.   

 

In terms of low level access to see things like bios messages you need a motherboard that supports iPMI access - and then you run the IPMI client over the VPN.

looks more and more like i'll have to utilize my next Berlin visit for some hardware (motherboard/CPU/etc.) upgrades that have been long overdue.

 

thanks itimpi

I think there's a bit of confusion here, so I want to make sure you're pointing yourself in the right direction.

You used to use a Mac at this location to connect to, and then control the WebUI of UnRaid, correct?

 

The current proposal is to get VPN access to the network where your UnRaid server is located, and therefore on the same subnet/network.

If this is the case, then perfect, from wherever you are far far away you use your main computer, connect to the VPN, and then type the IP of your UnRaid server. Success!

You are then able to get to the WebUi, and SSH into it for whatever commands or access that you may want to do.

 

If this is all you want to do, then no hardware is involved. I assume if you messed something up (updated UnRaid and it hangs, etc.) you could contact your friend and tell him to hit reset, pull power, etc. However you certainly would cover that issue of "phone a friend" by having IPMI (or maybe even Vpro, not sure of limitations) in order to control lower level things, as suggested.

You hit the nail of my concerns (and questions) on the head, bungee.

 

I'm out with friends now, but later I'll respond in more detail. I do foresee some issues with a VPN-only solution, and am hoping for something more powerful.

so...the thing that a head-unit afforded me was an actual desktop with a file-system, through which i could do downloads, installs, updates in an environment that i feel comfortable with...if all i had was a terminal window through which to download and install packages, i'd be creeping along at snail's speed, if that, rather than cruising.

 

sure, if i were to achieve this through - say - the use of a Windows 10 VM and RDP, i'd still be dead in the water if something got hung up, until i got someone to hit the reset button, but at least i'd be in a familiar environment until such situations arose.

 

i did do some searched and looked at some YouTube videos of running Windows 8.1 and 10 VMs on unRAID, but am unsure of whether my old motherboard would facilitate such a thing...like i said, if time were no issue (and money, to some extent), i'd spend the extra few days to install a new mobo and CPU, but i do not have either right now...i'd still like to learn how to get such a setup working and prepare to install it next time i'm here in Berlin.

...it seems that since installing unRAID OS v6 (i am currently on 6.0.1), all sorts of amazing things *would* be possible if i had the time and know-how...

Don't try anything amazing until you upgrade to the latest stable version, 6.1.9

Yes Sir, trurl Sir!

 

the upgrade is planned as soon as i have my unRAID back online and can do it via the Plugin page...in the meantime i am watching YouTube videos of amazing unRAID things being done

I'd love to get the box to the point where it can run a VM, and maybe - down the line - even upgrade to an iPMI mobo, so that i can monitor and maintain system level stuff as well, if need be.

speaking of VMs, all the examples of installing and configuring one i've been watching on YouTube are about Windows VMs...since i use an all Mac OS X based workflow, is it possible to run an OS X VM as well, and if so, will it perform much worse, being that all the hardware drivers for VMs seem to generally favor Windows flavors?

Heureka! Just got back to my Berlin apartment, where i'll be staying for 5 more days, to test access to the unRAID webGUI via my brand-spankin' new VPN setup that Benjamin, my friend's IT specialist, created for me, and it works like a charm! so cool!!

 

Although i do have another question (and i am sure it won't be the last in this context): is there a reason why my User Shares (SMB enabled) wouldn't be showing up on my Mac? even when i go the route of using the OS X Finder's "Go > Connect to Server" menu item, it gives me an error that it cannot connect or that no shares could be found...they are there, though.

Maybe the shares would work better as AFP shares?

Heureka! Just got back to my Berlin apartment, where i'll be staying for 5 more days, to test access to the unRAID webGUI via my brand-spankin' new VPN setup that Benjamin, my friend's IT specialist, created for me, and it works like a charm! so cool!!

 

Although i do have another question (and i am sure it won't be the last in this context): is there a reason why my User Shares (SMB enabled) wouldn't be showing up on my Mac? even when i go the route of using the OS X Finder's "Go > Connect to Server" menu item, it gives me an error that it cannot connect or that no shares could be found...they are there, though.

I'm more of a Windows guy than a MAC guy, but I'll try to help. 

 

Where your friend works, they may only open the ip ports that are absolutely necessary for the end user to work.  At a place I worked years ago, when vpn was setup for an end user they first had to fill out a questionnaire, and what ip ports to what ip addresses were available to them was tightly locked down based upon what they reported they needed to do with the vpn access in the questionnaire.  So your friend may have only opened the ip ports they thought you needed.  For example, web port 80 might be open, but SMB port 445 might not be.

 

It's also possible that the ports necessary for server name resolution might not be open.  Try using the ip address of the server instead of the server name in the smb connection screen. 

 

NeoDude, I tried both SMB and AFP with the same frustrating results.

 

TSM, I had also suspected port settings to be the culprit, but the IT guy who set me up was able to connect and mount both SMB and AFP shares with the same parameters as I tried to use.

 

Curiously enough, I am now able to connect from my iMac 5K, but not from my MBP Retina, which makes me think that there is something inherently screwed up in the network environment of my rMBP.

 

Do you know of a way to flush the "Connect as..." settings that are cached, so that i can enter another user to connect as the next time i try to mount a remote volume? I am beginning to suspect that I may need to connect as a different user than I entered the first time(s) i tried to connect from my rMBP.

Do you know of a way to flush the "Connect as..." settings that are cached, so that i can enter another user to connect as the next time i try to mount a remote volume? I am beginning to suspect that I may need to connect as a different user than I entered the first time(s) i tried to connect from my rMBP.

In Windows, that would be in Credential Manager. I think the Mac equivalent is KeyRing or something like that.

Probably the DNS isn't set up correctly on the Mac that's not cooperating.