Setup Trunking Recorder for Outside Access

[msingewald]

I am running SDRTrunk with Trunking Recorder, and I can use my browser to access TR perfectly while on the same network as the computer running the software. What I would like to do is set it up so that I can access the Trunking Recorder web interface from OUTSIDE my home network. Has anyone done this?

I understand opening ports, and I also understand the dangers of doing that, so I was hoping someone with some internet security savvy may have done this and can point out best practices to get this set up.

 

[LimaZulu]

First of all, what I am going to write will work if your IP is static. If it's not, you must use some service like duck dns, noip....or whoever you choose. There are a lot of free and paid services as well.
If you are unsure what that means you can check it very easily. Go to google and search "what is my ip". First result should be some numbers divided into 4 groups with dots, with 2 or 3 numbers in each group (rarely there may be some groups with just 1 number). Remember those numbers. Now restart your router and repeat this step. If the numbers are the same - that's great news! Your IP is static. If they are different - sorry, but your IP is dynamic which means that it changes every time you reconnect to your ISP or at any given time and you should think of using some DNS provider.

As I do not use Trunking Recorder can't point you to the right ports, but the basics behind port forwarding is all the same. Let's say that TR uses port 80 and the host machine's IP is 192.168.1.19. So what you want to do is to login to your router, find a menu that says something like "port forwarding" (not to be mistaken with "port triggering"). In there you have to say which port you want to forward - 80 (from our example). Then you have to say to what IP of your internal network port 80 should be routed - 192.168.1.19 (from our example). Depending on your router it may ask you for the external and internal ports as well - you can set them both to 80 (or whatever) and the protocol (TCP or UDP) - if you are unsure, you can set that to "both" or leave the default. Save that and you are ready to access it from outside.
Test it by disconnecting your phone from your home network and try to access your IP provided by the ISP at port 80. That would be the result from your google search at the beginning of this post followed by ":80" (without the quotes)
You can use the same way port triggrering. The main difference between port forwarding and port triggering is that once you forward a port it remains open. On the other hand, port triggering only opens the port whenever has to be used.

And now straight to the point - if you want to move things on another, more secure level you can use VPN - either by deploying your own server, or by using some paid or free service. Other simple way, that does not include VPN, will be to "mask" the traffic under port 443 and move the server over HTTPS

Yeah, I know that you said that you understand opening ports, but I had to say it just to be sure that there will be no misunderstanding and others can do it as well

 

[AM909]

... Now restart your router and repeat this step. If the numbers are the same - that's great news! Your IP is static. If they are different - sorry, but your IP is dynamic which means that it changes every time you reconnect to your ISP or at any given time and you should think of using some DNS provider.

I'll note there is a middle ground, where you may get reassigned the same IP if you are only briefly disconnected, but will get a different IP after longer disconnections or seemingly at random times (like every day or two). If you find your IP is dynamic, an alternative to using a DDNS solution (mentioned above) is to ask your ISP to assign you a static IP. Depending on the provider, it can be fairly cheap, and is easier than DDNS.

 

[LimaZulu]

I was about to mention that when I was writing the guide above, but decided to skip it as more of the consumer grade routers won't restart faster than 1 minute and often the time is close to, and sometimes above, 2 minutes. And if the router restarts for, let's say a minute and a half, the connection during boot process will not be negotiated earlier than 1 minute which at no standard is a brief disconnect
And since it's technically still possible to land on the middle ground even after a minute or so, the chances are much less possible. And still you can disconnect for 2 minutes + the time it takes the router to boot - that's another 3 and a half to 4 minutes of downtime which is quite enough for a dynamic IP to be dropped.

As for the question of the author, as I already said, the safest way is using a VPN. And my recommendation is to setup your own server as it can be quite used for accessing all of your internal network and yet to be on the safe side
I can recommend OpenVPN, as it's safe, reliable, well documented and it has android application so you can use it on your phone as well
Take a look at this guide: https://community.openvpn.net/openv...mwzDSOLwoDk-1632202933-0-gqNtZGzNAfujcnBszQcR