Hi Everyone,
We are almost ready with the advanced admin panel where you will be able to access advanced functions and features of your Remotly account (like setting up the IP address and port of you own data transfer server).
Why is this so important? It is very important not to open your main PC to any potential external attacks. Port forwarding is a nice feature but it is also a security threat. Furthermore if you leave your computer on all the time it consumes much more power than a simple Linux server based on a low-power device like Raspberry Pi or similar device.
Below are some of the main benefits of setting up a private connection server either at home or in your company:
- Lowest possible network lag
- No need to port forward data to any of your PCs that you want to access remotely
- Less power consumption
- Wake-On-Lan accessible from WAN (outside your local network)
- Attacks can only be done on the Linux server. But this does nothing for the attacker as all the data passing the server is encrypted with a key that is not accessible by this server
- Share your server with your friends/co-workers (limit costs)
- No problems with GDPR (passing sensitive data via third party servers)
This guide assumes you have already set up the remote computer (Linux server, Raspberry Pi etc.) you want to make your relay server and have all necessary permissions.
1. First, we need to access the remote machine's Linux system using SSH client. To establish SSH connection, client will ask to provide host IP address and user credentials. There are various tools you can use at this point, e.g. WinSCP, FileZilla or build-in openssh. From now on all the subsequent steps will refer to the server operating system.
2. In order to download Remotly relay you can use WGET utility typing the following command:
wget https://downloads.mirillis.com/files/beta/remotly-relay.zip
3. After that, unzip the remotly.zip file
unzip remotly-relay.zip
If you don't have unzip installed you probably run into "unzip: command not found" error. In that case you can install it by running the following commands:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install unzip
4. Grant proper credentials:
sudo chmod 755 -R remotly
sudo chown root:root -R remotly
5. Move all files to destination location:
sudo mv remotly /srv
6. Open the configuration file and set desired port number substituting the sample one. If it is possible, we recommend to use the standard HTTPS port (443) to avoid future access problems.
nano /srv/remotly/config/remotly-relay.json
7. Execute the installation script:
sudo bash /srv/remotly/script/installremotlyrelay.sh
8. Start the service:
sudo bash /srv/remotly/script/startremotlyrelay.sh
9. Double check if Remotly Relay service is running:
systemctl list-units --type=service --state=running
There should be remotly-relay.service on the list
Now that your server is running all we need to do is add your private server's IP and port(s) in your admin panel:
That's it! Now all your Connect Anywhere connections will use your own server.
If you have any questions please comment under this post.
We are almost ready with the advanced admin panel where you will be able to access advanced functions and features of your Remotly account (like setting up the IP address and port of you own data transfer server).
Why is this so important? It is very important not to open your main PC to any potential external attacks. Port forwarding is a nice feature but it is also a security threat. Furthermore if you leave your computer on all the time it consumes much more power than a simple Linux server based on a low-power device like Raspberry Pi or similar device.
Below are some of the main benefits of setting up a private connection server either at home or in your company:
- Lowest possible network lag
- No need to port forward data to any of your PCs that you want to access remotely
- Less power consumption
- Wake-On-Lan accessible from WAN (outside your local network)
- Attacks can only be done on the Linux server. But this does nothing for the attacker as all the data passing the server is encrypted with a key that is not accessible by this server
- Share your server with your friends/co-workers (limit costs)
- No problems with GDPR (passing sensitive data via third party servers)
This guide assumes you have already set up the remote computer (Linux server, Raspberry Pi etc.) you want to make your relay server and have all necessary permissions.
1. First, we need to access the remote machine's Linux system using SSH client. To establish SSH connection, client will ask to provide host IP address and user credentials. There are various tools you can use at this point, e.g. WinSCP, FileZilla or build-in openssh. From now on all the subsequent steps will refer to the server operating system.
2. In order to download Remotly relay you can use WGET utility typing the following command:
wget https://downloads.mirillis.com/files/beta/remotly-relay.zip
3. After that, unzip the remotly.zip file
unzip remotly-relay.zip
If you don't have unzip installed you probably run into "unzip: command not found" error. In that case you can install it by running the following commands:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install unzip
4. Grant proper credentials:
sudo chmod 755 -R remotly
sudo chown root:root -R remotly
5. Move all files to destination location:
sudo mv remotly /srv
6. Open the configuration file and set desired port number substituting the sample one. If it is possible, we recommend to use the standard HTTPS port (443) to avoid future access problems.
nano /srv/remotly/config/remotly-relay.json
7. Execute the installation script:
sudo bash /srv/remotly/script/installremotlyrelay.sh
8. Start the service:
sudo bash /srv/remotly/script/startremotlyrelay.sh
9. Double check if Remotly Relay service is running:
systemctl list-units --type=service --state=running
There should be remotly-relay.service on the list
Now that your server is running all we need to do is add your private server's IP and port(s) in your admin panel:
That's it! Now all your Connect Anywhere connections will use your own server.
If you have any questions please comment under this post.
Last edited:
ORT.