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Forum Discussion
ijoffe
Jul 05, 2024Aspirant
How to allow socket connections -- Nighthawk RAXE300
Hello, I am building a socket-based application to connect a controller device to a mobile robot. The robot acts as the server and will remain connected to this WiFi network, and I want the contr...
- Jul 06, 2024
Hard to tell, but it looks like your RAXE300 is behind another router or gateway device, thus creating a double NAT. If that is the case, then most remote access functions will have issues.
Ideally, it would be better to simply use a VPN to connect to the LAN then access devices on your network rather than forwarding ports and exposing them directly to the WAN, which increases your attack surface, and depending on how well the device is kept up to date (consider how many NAS devices there are where the company stopped releasing updates,and ransomware makers targeted unpatched vulnerabilities and attacked every vulnerable NAS exposed to the WAN).
Razor512
Jul 06, 2024Prodigy
Hard to tell, but it looks like your RAXE300 is behind another router or gateway device, thus creating a double NAT. If that is the case, then most remote access functions will have issues.
Ideally, it would be better to simply use a VPN to connect to the LAN then access devices on your network rather than forwarding ports and exposing them directly to the WAN, which increases your attack surface, and depending on how well the device is kept up to date (consider how many NAS devices there are where the company stopped releasing updates,and ransomware makers targeted unpatched vulnerabilities and attacked every vulnerable NAS exposed to the WAN).
- ijoffeJul 08, 2024Aspirant
Thanks, you are definitely right there. Is there any particular VPN setup you recommend? Would something like OpenVPN work to connect the devices via sockets?
- Razor512Jul 08, 2024ProdigyFor VPN, the router has a built in OpenVPN server, thus setting that up in would allow you to have client devices connect and access those resources from the LAN side. While it is not quite as convenient as a WAN facing resource, it is more secure.
if you need to give access to a service to a large number of users or users who you do not want to have LAN access, then you will be stuck with port forwards and exposing the server directly to the WAN, thus a stronger focus on keeping up with updates and any relevant CVEs to determine if any additional security steps are needed.- ijoffeJul 09, 2024Aspirant
Thanks for the info. What I ended up doing is using Tailscale (https://tailscale.com/). This makes the devices accessible to each through the double NAT.
Thanks for your help!