Setting up a VPN

So I’m getting ready to install a couple upgrades for the aquaponics system. But I’m wanting to setup several pi’s for remote access.

I’ve used OpenVPN to be able to have remote access to a network before. -> https://openvpn.net/

Not sure who to talk to about setting up Open VPN for the space.

(speaking of it, I’m needing static IP’s for 4 Pi’s, and permission to stick one on the roof for weather monitoring)

We’ve had a property mgmt change, but it’s likely the same case as before- we cannot access the roof. Property mgmt insurance does not allow it. If something goes wrong with the HVAC and it’s not a problem with the air handler, we call a licensed, bonded HVAC company and they get the code for the ladder and go up there. But, we can’t.

I think that’s an @elrod question.

We do have a VPN set up; not sure what the access criteria are.

We have limited uplink bandwidth and even-more-limited static IPs. I doubt we have four spares. Sure you can’t port-forward or consolidate all the UIs to one device? If I were setting up something like that, I’d look into putting the web frontend in AWS (a free micro instance would be plenty), and have that host retrieve data from devices on-site via VPN.

@dannym
I figured as such on the roof, i could settle for just finding a place on the patio where the pi and sensor could be mounted.

@Jon
The vpn and static ip’s is mostly just to do maintenance on the pi’s while their headless. My plan is for the data to be uploaded to a MySQL database when its running. But I need a way to remote in to adjust them.

The static IP’s aren’t required, but it would make troubleshooting alot easier when im working remotely,

1-will be a outdoor enviromental monitor
2-will be an indoor enviromental monitor
-both would be using a Pimoroni Enviro+ phat -> https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/enviro?variant=31155658457171

3- will be the system controller
-this will be using a Pi-plate cDAQ2 for analog inputs and digital output -> https://pi-plates.com/daqc2r1/

I would say the 2 environmental monitors aren’t critical for remote access, but the third one would be if i put it in charge of any of the pumps or heaters.

Putting them all in 1 pi, isn’t entirely practical either as the phat boards are needing to be physically placed in differently locations.

Oh, you mean static internal IPs (to access over the VPN) not static public IPs, right?

Internal static IPs shouldn’t be any trouble at all. (but may not be necessary depending on how our internal DNS is set up)

Yeah internal static IP.

If the VPN is trouble i already have remote access to 1 of the pi’s i have there so i can just connect to the others from that one.
(I use real vnc to do the remote access but its limited to 5 pi’s on the free account, and I’m already using 3 of them.)

This sounds like a cool use case to set up in LogicMonitor. We would just need to set a device in network as the “collector” then have that be the device reaching out to the pis for data. That would give you continuous tracking of whatever metrics you set it up for, alerting (if you so choose), ability to make a dashboard to consolidate all the metrics in one place for quick review. Here’s an example of a quick dashboard I made to look at the metrics around our website when it went down recently https://logicmtr.page.link/rv4cc . You wouldn’t be able to do work of changing the pis through LogicMonitor, but all the data collected off them could be stored and displayed in there.

Id be interested in setting it up on the logic monitor.

Id still want to send the data to a database for longer term analysis,

Information collected Inside/outside (from Enviro+ board)

  • Temperature
  • Humidity
  • Barometric Pressure
  • Lux (light level)
  • Noise Level
  • gas detector
    • Reduction Gases sensor (reported as total PPM)
      • Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S)
      • Carbon Monoxide(CO)
      • Ethanol (C2H5OH)
      • Ammonia (NH3)
      • Methane (CH4)
      • Propane (C3H8)
      • Iso-butane(C4H10)
    • Oxidising Gases sensor (reported as total PPM)
      • Hydrogen (H2)
      • Nitroxide (NO)
      • Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2)
    • Amonia gasses sensor (reported as total PPM)
      • Ammonia
      • Hydrogen
      • Propane
      • Ethanol
      • Iso-butane

Sensors For grow bed (using cDAQ plate)

  • Sump Water Level
  • Grow Bed Temp
  • sump Temp
  • Tank Temp
  • UV sensor
    • UVA
    • UVB
    • UV Index

You might consider hamachi. Its a cloud VPN thats very easy to admin, works with PIs and its free for 5 nodes and pretty cheap past that. Avoid having to have static address for the nodes.