Headless pi setup Q

[RASelkirk]

Hi All,

My gate opener dashboard is done and tested with the suitable inputs from a breadboard, all I need to do is mount it inside the box with the gate MoBo and connect a few wires.

I have N-R set up to run as a service so it auto-starts on reboot. Oooh, nevermind! Was curious if the actual (editor) program needed to be running but just tested it without any open interface and the /UI page loads just fine.

That sound good? If my buried headless pi were to reboot, all would still be accessible thru the /UI?

Pretty sure it'll reach my router OK, but I still need to find a dynamic DNS to redirect outside IP's to my /UI page, any recommendations? I had NO-IP for awhile, but the free version required re-upping every month...

Thanks!

Russ

[gerry]

I have several pi's setup headless around and indeed they run fine that way. As long as you start NR as a service they should reboot fine in power failures. Where two of mine are they lose power fairly regularly and besides my concerns about stressing the electronics they always seem to come up and run fine. If you are going to access them across the internet there are security concerns and I'm sure someone will weigh in on that. One of mine is entirely inaccessible except for dragging out a monitor and keyboard and the other one runs on a internal network. What they control always seem to be running ok so other than checking on them a few times after deploy to make sure there are doing what you think they should, you should be ok. And the UI on mine always comes up fine.

[Colin]

Don't open node-red up to the internet without, as an absolute minimum, using https and user/pwd authorisation. Otherwise it will get hacked.

Search the forum for more information before you go ahead with this.

[RASelkirk]

I will, just looked at DDNS and see it's not as secure as I thought. I use a VPN on my laptop, have extra licenses, and there is a linux install available. So maybe that on the pi as well?

Russ

[Colin]

VPN is a good choice. I use openvpn on a pi to give access from outside.

[mintgroen]

Node-red as a service, boot to the cmd line and your good to go. My Raspberry's run for months without reboots. its a rare situation that a reboot needs a monitor, just SSH to the RPI if the network is up.

OpenVPN is easy to set up and works fine. I use the VPN to reach my internal network and safe browsing when connected to open wifi xs points.

No-ip DDNS needs a refresh every month so that is nog very handy. I did not check if DDNS is possible on my webhosting server. But it may be worth checking somewhere in the future. You could use node red to fetch the local IP and post that to your webhost that supports updating the DNS by API. That would be cool, and no more clicking every month!

[RASelkirk]

I also have the ability to put VPN on my router and cover everything, but it slows my laptop WiFi from 110/12 to around 20/8. Not a problem for the 'puter, but not good for streaming. I'll DL the linux distro and take a peek...

Russ

[Colin]

See https://www.pivpn.io/
I haven't used it but apparently it works ok.
Alternatively, if you want to do it yourself see my blog http://blog.clanlaw.org.uk/pi-vpn-server.html