#I am working on setting up Owntracks in

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

tawny notch
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There's no magic there. All you need to do is make your HA remotely accessible, with SSL. That you're using OwnTracks is irrelevant to that.

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You need:

  1. Some form of DNS service to map a hostname to your IP - whether that's your own domain or something like DuckDNS
  2. If you have a dynamic WAN IP, something to update that hostname when the IP changes
  3. SSL from any provider you want, many people use LetsEncrypt since it's free
  4. Port forwarding to either HA or a proxy server (which would then handle the SSL part)
compact peak
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Thanks Tinkerer. I was hoping to find a complete write-up on how to do this as the whole think is greek to me. I have a static ip (well it's officially dynamic but it never changes) so I guess I could poke some holes into the firewall and forward whatever port that is used by Owntracks. This in itself seems quite the hurdle to me. I do actually have a tracker set up and I am seeing my location but it is all via a local IP. I do not have data on my phone so whenever I connect to the internet it is via a wifi connection.
So my first order of business - how can I display the traffic that arrives from OwnTrack. I need to be able to see that somehow in order to see if any sort of firewall setup allows traffic in.
I also don't know how I can fool OwnTrack on my Android phone to connect from outside my local area network for testing.

tawny notch
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I also don't know how I can fool OwnTrack on my Android phone to connect from outside my local area network for testing.
That's just updating the configuration of the OwnTracks client

compact peak
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The eventual device that will be tracked does have data and can get in from the outside but I don't twant to screw around with my wife's phone when I haven't got the first clue about what I am doing.

tawny notch
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Start by picking a port to use - many people will use 443 or 8123, but there's no need to use either of those if you don't want to (and know what you're doing)

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So, pick (say) 443 and then you'll eventually be able to use https://yourha.duckdns.org/... for the URL

compact peak
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I used the integration documentation and the video in that link to help me set up what I have so far but they are going via a cloud service and I am too cheap to pay the yearly fee so want to go direct to my computer..

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Thanks for the link to the generic guide - I will study it and see what I can learn

tawny notch
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As I said above, that you're using OwnTracks here doesn't really matter until you get to the point of setting up OwnTracks itself. The whole remote access part is generic for anything.

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This does mean you can test it all without touching OwnTracks at all, just using a web browser to see if you can reach the HA UI

compact peak
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Ok, I will see if I can figure it out.
Can you advise how I can monitor Owntrack data flowing into HA? The logbook doesn't seem to display that traffic and the log viewer has so much traffic that I can't locate any owntracks traffic in it.

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Had a quick look at the link you provided for the remote access ..... my eyes glazed over .... and when I got to this bit:

Congratulations on getting this far without throwing your computer out of the window!

I was severely tempted to toss the computer. This will require some major thinking and figuring out. There is a distinct possibility that I have bitten off more than I can chew 😦

tawny notch
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There's a saying about how you have to eat the elephant one bite at at time, it's the same here - don't try to "solve" this in one go, while looking at all the fiddly little details.

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Break the problem down into neat little chunks that you solve in order. By the time you get to even caring about OwnTracks you'll already have working remote access sorted out and OwnTracks will just slot into that.

tawny notch