# Troubleshooting a remote network discovery

**URL:** <https://discourse.nodered.org/t/troubleshooting-a-remote-network-discovery/50853>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [10 September 2021 10:46 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/troubleshooting-a-remote-network-discovery/50853 "2021-09-10T10:46:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![BartButenaers](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/bartbutenaers/32/10476_2.png) [@BartButenaers](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/BartButenaers)\
**Post date:** [10 September 2021 10:46 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/troubleshooting-a-remote-network-discovery/50853/1 "2021-09-10T10:46:13Z")

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Hi folks,

I have a very inconvenient problem with my [node-red-contrib-onvif-nodes](https://github.com/bartbutenaers/node-red-contrib-onvif-nodes). Already multiple people have reported that the automatic discovery on Onvif devices doesn't work anymore with latest Github version. Perhaps it is a bug in my own code, but I have also updated to the latest version of the [onvif](https://github.com/agsh/onvif) library that I am using under the cover. Perhaps there is a bug in that library. I don't know ...

I have already done remote debugging this week on a remote camera from a user (which was made public via port forwarding). That worked fine to find the root cause. But now I need to be able to debug a [WS discovery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WS-Discovery) that is started by a Discovery node (from my own Node-RED flow) on somebody else his LAN.

Does anybody know an 'easy' way to do that? Don't have much time at the moment to start studying about this subject, or to setup complex network stuff ...

Thanks!!  
Bart

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**Author:** ![TotallyInformation](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/totallyinformation/32/31_2.png) [@TotallyInformation](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/TotallyInformation)\
**Post date:** [10 September 2021 14:43 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/troubleshooting-a-remote-network-discovery/50853/2 "2021-09-10T14:43:16Z")

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The easiest way would most likely be for them to provide you with a remote NGROK or SSH session that would let you use port forwarding so that you could forward the remote discovery ports to your own network. Not sure how easy that actually is though as I've never done it with WS Discovery.

The easiest from your perspective would be for them to provide you with a full private VPN connection because you would then actually _be_ on their network and discovery should work as it would locally, you would have an IP address on their LAN which is what you really want for TCP broadcasts.

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**Author:** ![BartButenaers](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/bartbutenaers/32/10476_2.png) [@BartButenaers](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/BartButenaers)\
**Post date:** [10 September 2021 15:13 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/troubleshooting-a-remote-network-discovery/50853/3 "2021-09-10T15:13:24Z")

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Thanks Julian !!

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**Author:** ![craigcurtin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/94ad74/32.png) [@craigcurtin](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/craigcurtin)\
**Post date:** [10 September 2021 15:57 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/troubleshooting-a-remote-network-discovery/50853/4 "2021-09-10T15:57:02Z")

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Yep your really need something like an OpenVPN or some such that terminates you in their main network segment- not on a subnet that is routed.

Depending on how the devices implement the WSD stuff they may be being lazy and just doing UDP broadcasts - as such these will not travel across a subnet (as it is routed), so you will need something that is bridged onto the same segment as the devices.

Craig

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**Author:** ![BartButenaers](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/bartbutenaers/32/10476_2.png) [@BartButenaers](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/BartButenaers)\
**Post date:** [10 September 2021 16:20 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/troubleshooting-a-remote-network-discovery/50853/5 "2021-09-10T16:20:58Z")

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Thanks Craig!  
The pblem is that this is quite complex. When some guy ask me why his IP cam doesn't show up when executing an Onvif discovery, I can hardly ask: _"Hey no problem, just setup a VPN and allow me to start doing some crazy stuff on you local network"_ 🙃 And automatic disvovery is used often by less technical skilled people...

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/nodered/original/1X/d073cd938eafa2e558d7c2cd59003b3ef4963033.png) [@system](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [9 November 2021 16:21 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/troubleshooting-a-remote-network-discovery/50853/6 "2021-11-09T16:21:20Z")

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