Remote Console not working

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Dave van Dongen asked Dec 18, '18

Remote Console not working

I installed a CCGX in Ethiopia. It is connected to the router of the house via a fixed cable. Monitoring interval to VRM is 1 minutes and works flawlessly. But Remote Console doesn't work, both from my phone and my laptop and both on the local network or from outside access. When I am on the local network and I connect to the Remote Console of my CCGX back home in The Netherlands it works fine. So it seems the connection from "outside coming in" is working fine.
I tried most steps on this page (except the advanced steps), but no result:

https://www.victronenergy.com/live/vrm_portal:troubleshooting_ccgx_vrm_connectivity

(SOLVED: Also I inserted a 16Gb micro SD card, but the CCGX is not logging on the SD card. It recognises the card and tells me the available storage space, etc., but no records seem to be written to the card. Any ideas?)

CCGX Color Control remote console

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nigelfxs commented · Dec 19, 2018 at 12:08 PM

The CCGX will typically be allocated a local-LAN IP Address by the Router. If you can log into the router to check this IP address - you can then try accessing the CCGX by typing this IP Address into you browser (from a PC connected on the local LAN).

You should see a response from the CCGX - either requesting a password or giving an access denied (if Remote access is disabled). This will help identify whether there is an issue with the allocation of the local IP address on the LAN (i.e. DHCP service) or some other issue (e.g. Firewall issue).

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Dave van Dongen nigelfxs commented · Dec 19, 2018 at 10:36 PM

Thanks, very useful information, good thinking! I will try this!

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Dave van Dongen nigelfxs commented · Dec 20, 2018 at 03:27 PM

Update: The CCGX is on DHCP and has an IP address that seems to remain pretty constant. (lease time of minimal 1,5 hour)
When on the local LAN I browse to this IP address, I get the login for the Remote Console and after logging in, the Remote Console works perfectly!
So the allocation of the local IP address does not seem to be an issue.
I am going to chekc the router configuration now...

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mvader (Victron Energy) answered · Jul 10, 2019 at 05:53 PM

Hi all; an update: this was solved in Venus OS v2.30, released last May.

There is no longer any verification on IP Address.

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Dave van Dongen commented · Jul 10, 2019 at 07:18 PM

Thanks for the notice! I will try to upgrade the remote installation (tricky, because there is no Remote Console! ;-) ) and try again!

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Modifications Space

Node Red Space

Answer 1 · 2018-12-19T06:50:26Z

wkirby answered · Dec 19, 2018 at 06:50 AM

Did you enable remote console in VRM from the CCGX?

It does not log to the SD card if it is logging to VRM. If you lost internet connection, it will start logging to SD card, when the internet connection return's then the contents of the SD will be drained into VRM.

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Dave van Dongen commented · Dec 19, 2018 at 10:17 AM

@WKirby Thanks for your answer! :-)

Regarding the SD card, I was under the impression that I could do logging to VRM and teh SD card both simultaneously. But OK, as long as I have connection, I can work with VRM and the SD card sits there in case the connection is lost for longer than 3 days at some moment.

Regarding the Remote Console: Yes, I enabled Remote Console. I set a password and rebooted the CCGX. Didn't work. I disabled the password and rebooted the CCGX. Didn't work. I tried all the basic steps mentioned on the web page above, but it doesn't work... :-(

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wkirby ♦♦ Dave van Dongen commented · Dec 19, 2018 at 10:28 AM

I should have asked what CCGX version are your sites on?

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Dave van Dongen wkirby ♦♦ commented · Dec 19, 2018 at 08:46 PM

Freshly installed, so the latest version: v2.22

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Answer 2 · 2018-12-19T22:10:15Z

mvader (Victron Energy) answered · Dec 19, 2018 at 10:10 PM

Hi, wrt not being able to login to the system; it sounds like you are running into the IP Address verification issue:

——-

IP Address verification

Remote Console on VRM checks the IP Address for security reasons.

In case all above does not help, it might be that your internet connection very frequently changes its IP-address. And/or that the internet provider routes the different data stream over different of its routers.

Both of which will make the IP verification fail and therefor makes Remote Console fail. To solve this problem, contact your internet provider and/or change to a different internet provider.

Note that it is not necessary for the CCGX to be addressable itself, and/or have a public IP address. Worded differently: traversing NAT translation is no problem.

——

From: https://www.victronenergy.com/live/vrm_portal:troubleshooting_ccgx_vrm_connectivity#ip_address_verification.

Solution is in the text; and I dont know of any other solution; other than ofcourse wait for us to fix the security in a different way (drop the IP Address verification). Doing so is planned for next year; but I dont have a date.

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Dave van Dongen commented · Dec 20, 2018 at 09:37 AM

Hi Matthijs, thanks for your answer. Maybe this is the problem. I understand that I cannot solve this, if this is the case. I will try again and see if I can get more information on the situation.I have one doubt with the above: Does IP address verification also apply when both the read-out device (phone/laptop) and the CCGX are on the same internal network/connected to the same household router? Or does the Remote Console traffic then still go through the connection with the outside world? Ok, I will do some more testing and post the results on this page.

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Dave van Dongen Dave van Dongen commented · Dec 20, 2018 at 05:10 PM

Ah, yes, the Remote Console on the VRM website always goes through the outside connection, off course, duh. I found that the Remote Console does work on the LAN.

Further: the IP address of both the CCGX on the LAN and of the internet connection to the outside world actually seems to be stable and not to change. (or not very often, at least. Stable for the last couple of hours now and Remote Console still doesn't work.)

How can I test if the data goes over different routers? Any other tests that I can perform? Test for firewalls? Test if ports are blocked?

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mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ Dave van Dongen commented · Dec 20, 2018 at 08:11 PM

Hi, I briefly looked for your site in ethiopia; and can confirm that all works well (no ports are blocked and-so-forth). So it must be the ipaddress issue.

No more checking will help; sorry.

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Dave van Dongen mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Dec 20, 2018 at 10:51 PM

Hi Matthijs, thanks for checking.
I spend the whole afternoon on a remote desktop session to try everything I could from a laptop that was in the LAN.
I tried the advanced (HTPPS) stuff from the webpage mentioned above. It didn't respond like it should, actually, so I was thinking that could be the problem. But that stuff is more VRM related and not so much Remote Console related, as far as I can see.
Anyway, if it is the IP address issue, I am screwed, I guess, because there is nothing I can do about it. :-(
I will anxiously wait for the fix...

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Dave van Dongen Dave van Dongen commented · Jan 22, 2019 at 10:11 PM

I just checked the IP adresses, BTW. It has been a month since I last checked, but the IP adresses are exactly the same, didn't change! Both the IP adress of the CCGX on the internal network and the IP adress of the house connection in the wide world are, after a month, still exactly the same.

It is written: "In case all above does not help, it might be that your internet connection very frequently changes its IP-address."
But this is certainly not the case, because the IP adresses are very stable.

It continues: "And/or that the internet provider routes the different data stream over different of its routers."
So, can I now conclude that this is the case?

"Both of which will make the IP verification fail and therefor makes Remote Console fail. To solve this problem, contact your internet provider and/or change to a different internet provider."

I could now ask the internet provider to ask if this routing issue can be worked around?

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markus ♦♦ Dave van Dongen commented · Jan 23, 2019 at 12:18 AM

just a workaround, that could maybe help to avoid changing provider. Depending on the local routers capabilities, it could be possible to establish a Site to Site VPN connection to a router in e.g. Europe and route the VRM traffic over this router and use its IP address for VRM related traffic only.

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markus ♦♦ markus ♦♦ commented · Jan 23, 2019 at 12:42 AM

Or just a e.g. SSLVPN "dialup" connection to the local router and use the LAN console, remotely.

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Dave van Dongen markus ♦♦ commented · Jan 23, 2019 at 06:12 PM

Thanks, I will investigate if this is possible! (I am not too big on the IT stuff, but let's see how far I get.)

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