What is "Remote Support IP and Port"?

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kurtinge asked Oct 9, '23

What is "Remote Support IP and Port"?

I've noticed there are a field called "Remote IP and Support" following a IP-adress and port. As I am not in my vessel to verify, I don't know if this my IP or not. I checked out that address and it seems to belong to a company i Netherlands - which is not country I live in. Tried to ssh to the address and port and it answered. Kind of strange it answered, though. But I could not enter despite the fact I entered the correct root password.

So - then lets get into the questions :-)

Does this IP-address belong to some kind of support-channel or something at VitronEnergy?
Is this IP/port tunneling into my Venus?
Could eventually this be used by me somehow, or is this just a Victron matter and the only way for me is to portforward port 22?
How about security as I can see there is a service answering in the other end?

Venus OS

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Answer 1 · 2023-10-09T15:08:09Z

grahamwood answered · Oct 09, 2023 at 03:08 PM

If you disable 'Remote Support' in 'Settings', 'General', then you won't see it anymore. I guess if you want remote support then the service provider will advise you on how to populate these fields.

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Answer 2 · 2023-10-09T15:37:20Z

Sten answered · Oct 09, 2023 at 03:37 PM

It is a support chanel victron can use to service your GX device over the internet.

If you want to access your GX device via SSH, you will need to activate superuser and set a password. Then you can SSH to your GX device. Be sure you know what you are doing when in a consol on your GX device.

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Answer 3 · 2023-10-10T10:18:08Z

kurtinge answered · Oct 10, 2023 at 10:18 AM

I get a bit concerned that ssh is answering at that address. I have disabled this function and guess this, at least, makes my system more secure.
But the interesting thing about this matter is that this means the address located in Netherlands seems to be exposed to "ALL" at port 22. In general, from a security perspective, this it is not good practice as this means this address is exposed to the whole internet.

Maybe @mvader (Victron Energy) can enlighten my worries when it comes to the security through this SSH-tunnel? What resides in the other side of this address and does this expose customers?

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