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    Z-Net in a remote location?

    Trying to figure out the best way to extend my Homeseer z-wave network to a remote location. It's a storage condo with a public wifi. My first thought is to fire up OpenVPN on the OS of the z-net and having it tunnel itself automatically back to my netgear R7000 that has integrated OpenVPN support. I use it for my iPhone today, and it works great.

    But I'm not sure any of that would actually work. First, it's public wifi, and the config page of the Z-net (I already have one of them), is wide open. Any yahoo could find my z-net and, as a minimum, change its IP. Obviously, they could do a lot worse.

    Then, I'm not even sure if you can get into the Linux of the z-net's raspberrypi to install openvpn.

    How is everyone else putting a z-net in a remote location, miles away from their homeseer server?

    #2
    Interesting project. Can't help with VPN but perhaps with some znet tips...

    To get Linux command line access: there is an admin user 'homeseer'; this post offers some passwords to try. On the management page it'll say "Z-Net Configuration" if its v1, or "Z-Net V2 Configuration" if v2. If its v2, also try the default Raspberry Pi login - username 'pi', password 'raspberry'.

    Of course if you have another rpi, you can remove the SD card from the znet, mount it on the other pi and edit the /etc/shadow file to your hearts content...

    This post provides a patch to add basic authentication to the management interface. Even with this, I wouldn't trust the znet on the open internet without further vetting. Security-wise it's kind of a mess.

    When working remotely, it may help to know that visiting http://Your.znet.ip/Main/Reboot.php will immediately reboot the unit. Obviously this could be a force for good or evil!

    Also, when operating remotely, network disconnects may be more likely and may cause issues. If so, and you have znetv2 1.0.23 update, see this post for some patches that will add back some fixes from previous updates that were inexplicably dropped from the 1.0.23 patch.

    Good luck and please post your progress.

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      #3
      Not sure why I never posted my progress on this. I feel like a jerk. Sorry.

      Here's what i did and it's been working great. In a nutsell, I created my own firewalled subnet (with both ethernet and wifi) off of their public wifi. And had them do some port forwarding to my subnet. They were very receptive to helping me get this working. Their theory was that the more people who have advanced security, device monitoring in their units, the less likely anyone will try to break into other people's units, because they know there's some advanced monitoring randomly deployed.


      The hardest part of this was to create the link so that the WAN interface on my router was wireless. and the LAN interface was wired. Not a standard concept for sure... I ended up doing DD-WRT on my R7000 that let me do exactly that. Everything else was fairly simple.


      I asked them to give me a static IP that I'd use on the wireless WAN of my Router. I then asked them to give me a range of UDP/TCP ports that they would forward to that Static IP. Znet requires port TCP 2001. So, I asked for ports 2001-2004 (I needed others for Plex, VPN, etc). I then had to do the same. In my R7000, I had to forward those ports to whatever server/app needed them. In this case, I forwarded port 2001 over to my HS Znet. It was almost instanteous. I got a green light on the znet within seconds of submitted that config. Obviously, I had to also add the znet interface to my HS admin as an "Ethernet" interface, using port 2001.

      It's been working great. I had some issues where the storage unit admins would make changes to their network and then break my stuff. So, I'd have to text them and ask then to fix the forwarding or the static IP. Finally, they offered to put a managed Unify AP in my unit that my router/bridge could talk directly to. This way, they new exactly when they break my stuff, as they get alarms all over the place. And I've been trying to figure out a good tool to monitor my HS logs and generate an alarm when HS loses connectivity to the storage unit. I' was playing with Blade's Log utility (in trial mode). It seems to work well. It hasn't been touched in a while. And I need to see if he's supporting it in HS4.

      So... That's my story. Very happy with it. I've got about 20 devices (ie water, motion, temp sensors, controlled outlets, etc). I'm sure HomeSeer isn't encrypting the link between the HS server and the znet, but haven't taken the time to look. But i figure there's not a whole lot someone could do even if they did get the data. They could see that my Neon lights turned on when you enter the unit. Or see what the temperature is. I'm ok with that.

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