Need Wake on LAN help or Alternative Solution

JKnott

@nogbadthebad said in Need Wake on LAN help or Alternative Solution:

Prompt from the Apple store will do it, but if you set up a VPN you could just connect via https.

Why VPN or HTTPS, when SSH is all that's needed. PfSense already has SSH availalble. All he needs is a SSH client to connect to the fireall, a rule to let him in and then just issue the WOL command.

NogBadTheBad

The IP address where he’s connecting from may change, not all ISPs supply a fixed IP address.

Also if you don’t create a VPN that suggests that ssh and the service Plex is using is available on the WAN interface.

VPN is more secure.

It’s not just WOL that’s required even if that’s all that was asked by the OP.

JKnott

the address he's connecting from should be irrelevant. I often use SSH from various elsewhere.
SSH is already available, without having to do anything else. It's built into the FreeBSD that pfSense is based on.
All he has to do on pfSense is create a rule that lets it in. I currently have NAT set up to allow access to my main computer, but it could just as easily be set up to allow connection to pfSense.
You can configure SSH to use a private/public key pair for security, which is a lot harder to break than a password. Security would be similar to a VPN or HTTPS
All he needs to add is a SSH client. Linux comes with one and Windows users can use Putty. There are also SSH clients for Android and probably iOS. Given that MAC OS is also BSD based, it would have a built in client too.

Once he's at the command prompt, he simply issues the WOL command, though it's also possible to use SSH to connect and enter the command in one operation. SSH is by far the easiest operation, unless he already has a VPN available. In that case, simply run SSH through the tunnel and forget about the rule to allow it in from the Internet.

NogBadTheBad

Yes but he’s not going to be able to view his his plex content is he!

It’s the address he’s connecting from that’s the issue.

JKnott

@nogbadthebad said in Need Wake on LAN help or Alternative Solution:

Yes but he’s not going to be able to view his his plex content is he!

It’s the address he’s connecting from that’s the issue.

His question was about WOL, that is remotely starting a computer. Whatever happens after that is another matter.

tagit446

Hi JKnott & NoBadTheBad, thank you both for all of the info.

Sounds like there is a few different ways to go about this from your comments and I have to admit I am a bit confused on which would be the best way to go.

Let me try to clear up a few things from my end.

I do use PPPoE for my internet and yes from time to time my IP does change.

I do have a VPN account with ExpressVPN and used them to setup OpenVPN on my firewall.

I do have a dynamic DNS account with afraid.org (FreeDNS) but don't have it setup. I thought I might need it since my public IP can change.

After Jknott's first reply I did set up SSH using a private/public key and put an SSH client on my iPhone (Termius). I can access the pfsense console locally from the iphone but not the webGUI.

I still want to explore each of your solutions so maybe we can work through each one. I do need a working solution but I also would like to learn how to do each and then decide on what works best for me.

Concerning SSH, since I got this set up lets start there.

How do I SSH into the webGUI or is it not possible?
What URL do I use to access remotely from someone else's network, would it be my public IP?
If i cannot SSH into the webGUI, how do I issue a WOL command from the console?

JKnott

@tagit446 said in Need Wake on LAN help or Alternative Solution:

How do I SSH into the webGUI or is it not possible?

Depends on the operating system. On Linux and other Unix based OSs, very easy. You can use the ssh -X command to run a graphical interface app. Others, I couldn't say.

tagit446

@jknott said in Need Wake on LAN help or Alternative Solution:

@tagit446 said in Need Wake on LAN help or Alternative Solution:

How do I SSH into the webGUI or is it not possible?

Depends on the operating system. On Linux and other Unix based OSs, very easy. You can use the ssh -X command to run a graphical interface app. Others, I couldn't say.

I would be SSHing ing from either IOS 11 on an iPhone or from a windows 10 home laptop.

stephenw10

I would definitely setup a VPN here. Why would you not do that if you can? I use it all the time just for tunneling my traffic if I'm on some untrusted network somewhere.

SSH is always useful, especially if you setup an SSH proxy. Never tried that from iOS though.

Why not both?

Steve

NogBadTheBad

Have you thought how your going to access your plex content?

SammyWoo

@tagit446 This thing is oftenly referred to as WOW (Wake on WAN) if u need to Google it.

I just did it the "easy" way, port forward port 7 (if I recall correctly, not at home at the moment), I also forgot whether I port forwarded to the actual mask, or the broadcast mask (255.255.255.255), try both see which one works. Only caveat is, anybody can wake your box, but so what? let them, they can't do anything else, unless you let them right.

Now this is only the wake portion. How you actually access your box is a separate deal.

tagit446

Ok, so i'm still exploring everything that has been said but want to ask if the following would work.

First, as I mentioned before, I have a VPN account with ExpressVPN. Currently I am using OpenVPN via ExpressVPN setup on my entire pfsense network except for the PC in which my Plex Server is setup on. When I connect to the internet with this PC it goes through my ISP instead of the VPN. According to the remote access settings in Plex I should be able to access Plex remotely from out side of my network but I have not been able to verify it yet.

With that said, I also have a app from ExpressVPN installed on my iPhone so that I can tunnel my phone internet traffic through ExpressVPN regardless of who's internet I am using. I also have now setup Dynamic DNS on pfSense. So is this as simple as....

When using someone else's network, start my VPN app.
Connect to my pfSense firewall by going to the URL I got from Dynamic DNS host? For example, would going to http://mychoosenName.mooo.com take me to my pfsense's webgui login?
In pfSense, Send WOL to my Plex Server/PC.

If what I am asking could be working solution, is there anything else I would need to configure in pfSense to make this work or any security issues I should be aware of?

Kinda sucks I need to travel somewhere and use someone else's network to test if it would work or not.

SammyWoo

"Kinda sucks I need to travel somewhere and use someone else's network to test if it would work or not."

No you do not. U maybe able to use your smart phone cellular network...

SmartPhone -> cellular -> Internet -> YourISP -> YourBroadbandWAN.

tagit446

@sammywoo said in Need Wake on LAN help or Alternative Solution:

"Kinda sucks I need to travel somewhere and use someone else's network to test if it would work or not."

No you do not. U maybe able to use your smart phone cellular network...

SmartPhone -> cellular -> Internet -> YourISP -> YourBroadbandWAN.

Palm to face.. you are absolutely right lol. I've had my iPhone for 4 years and in that time I have never turned on the data as it has only one gig shared between myself and my wife's phone. Just always connected it to wifi and didn't give the cellular data a thought. I swear, sometimes I do a good job at embarrassing myself...

stephenw10

Rather than connecting to ExpressVPN from your phone/laptop and then coming back into your pfSense box outside the tunnel it would be better to setup a VPN server on the pfSense box itself and just connect directly to it.

Shorter route. Less (or no) NAT. End to end inside the VPN.

You would then connect to your plex server as though you're local. No need to port froward anything to it opening potential security holes.

Steve

JKnott

@tagit446 said in Need Wake on LAN help or Alternative Solution:

Kinda sucks I need to travel somewhere and use someone else’s network to test if it would work or not.

What sort of Internet connection do you have? I have a cable modem with 2 ports. I normally just use one of them to connect my firewall, but I occasionally use the 2nd for testing. Of course, as someone else mentioned, you can tether to your cell phone.

tagit446

@stephenw10 said in Need Wake on LAN help or Alternative Solution:

Rather than connecting to ExpressVPN from your phone/laptop and then coming back into your pfSense box outside the tunnel it would be better to setup a VPN server on the pfSense box itself and just connect directly to it.

Shorter route. Less (or no) NAT. End to end inside the VPN.

You would then connect to your plex server as though you're local. No need to port froward anything to it opening potential security holes.

Steve

I just set this up following a Lawrence Systems video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rQ-Tgt3L18) .

In the VPN > OpenVPN > Servers > Tunnel Settings it allowed me to add my LAN1 network which is where my Plex server resides. I tested the connection locally from my iphone to my plex server and it works. I haven't tried it remotely using my iphone's cellular data due to poor connection signal at the moment. Cellular is poor at home and only works sometimes.

So I am wondering, will this connection let me access the pfsense webGUI by default or would I need to edit the setting to allow this. I only need remote access to the pfsense webGUI to issue the WOL to the plex server. If I need to edit the settings, what exactly would I need to do?

I am also wondering if my public IP was to change, would it effect the VPN connection?

If it would effect the connection, I do have a Dynamic DNS account setup but I am unsure how I would make it work with the VPN.

@jknott said in Need Wake on LAN help or Alternative Solution:

@tagit446 said in Need Wake on LAN help or Alternative Solution:

Kinda sucks I need to travel somewhere and use someone else’s network to test if it would work or not.

What sort of Internet connection do you have? I have a cable modem with 2 ports. I normally just use one of them to connect my firewall, but I occasionally use the 2nd for testing. Of course, as someone else mentioned, you can tether to your cell phone.

ADSL+, ISP > 4 port DSL Modem > pfSense > Local network with 2 unmanaged switches & 1 WiFi access point.

stephenw10

It will allow you access the webgui via the LAN IP as long as you have firewall rules to allow it. By default the wizard adds an allow all rule.

As long as the OpenVPN client is using your DynDNS address to access the server it will be updated automatically if your WAN IP changes. If you used the OpenVPN client exporter it has an option for choosing how the client does that, Host Name Resolution. By default it will just use the interface IP but if you have a dyndns address configured it will be selectable there.

Steve

tagit446

@stephenw10 said in Need Wake on LAN help or Alternative Solution:

It will allow you access the webgui via the LAN IP as long as you have firewall rules to allow it. By default the wizard adds an allow all rule.

As long as the OpenVPN client is using your DynDNS address to access the server it will be updated automatically if your WAN IP changes. If you used the OpenVPN client exporter it has an option for choosing how the client does that, Host Name Resolution. By default it will just use the interface IP but if you have a dyndns address configured it will be selectable there.

Steve

Thanks for the info Steve

I think I have this setup correctly and works from a windows 10 desktop and appears to be working on my iphone6 IOS 11.4 except for a couple of issues.

I used the client export tool in pfsense and for the iphone I choose the "OpenVPN Connect (IOS/Android)" download. This created one file and I then added the file into itunes by dropping it into OpenVPN folder. After this OpenVPN connect recognized the file and imported it in. After signing in it appeared to connect but at the same time it looks like there might be some issues.

On the iphone while in OpenVPN Connect, if I click on "Certs" I get a message saying "No certificates are present in the keychain. Note: PKCS#12 files need to end with '.ovpn12', instead of '.p12' or '.pfx', for proper importing (check FAQ)" I tried looking on the web but found nothing useful on this error.
On the iphone, both safari and duck duck go give me this error about "This connection is not private". For this I figured I needed to manually trust the OpenVPN certificate but when I go into the trust settings there is no certificate to trust.

tagit446

O'Boy, I'm not sure what happened but I rebooted pfSense and now I can not access pfSense webgui.

UPDATE: The reboot caused my public IP to change. It took a little bit for dynamic dns to update my IP. I can now log in to pfSense. I tried to delete this post but it said I didn't have the right privileges.