Vera Decoupled from the cloud services
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Interesting. I have actually run completely decoupled from the cloud service for a couple of years and I think a number of people in the forum dating back years were doing so too as I picked up knowledge from them. It is good to have a simple script to do it though as it took a few manual steps to do this in the past, including a very raw script I had published in the old place. Unfortunately this was only one very small piece of my peeling the vera onion as it is only one of the factors of instability.
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Hm which makes me wonder... what happens when I just disable the internet connection for vera? I do everything locally and use vera solely as a zwave bridge...
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I seriously consider to decouple my Vera's from the Vera cloud services. In case they shut the servers down in the near future. You never know....
I have read the readme document on @toggledbits.
And have two questions.
First of all I will lose remote access (via their cloud service). This is a big disadvantage for me. I used Imperihome app in the past to check and if needed control some devices or start some scenes also when I'm not at home. Now I use TheHomeRemote app and this works very well to controll my Vera's and Fibaro Home Center remotely. Good chance I will cange to MSR in the near future.
To make this possible after decoupling my Vera's I need to use port forwarding. I have read on the Vera forum that some users advice not to do this because it is not safe. After some further googling I find very contradictive opinions wether using port forwarding is safe or not.
So what is the opinion of the experts on this forum? Is it really not safe and why ? How can I reduce the safety risks ?Second question: should I wait for the upcoming 7.32 firmware update of Vera (I know some of you are beta testing this), is it wortwile?
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I seriously consider to decouple my Vera's from the Vera cloud services. In case they shut the servers down in the near future. You never know....
I have read the readme document on @toggledbits.
And have two questions.
First of all I will lose remote access (via their cloud service). This is a big disadvantage for me. I used Imperihome app in the past to check and if needed control some devices or start some scenes also when I'm not at home. Now I use TheHomeRemote app and this works very well to controll my Vera's and Fibaro Home Center remotely. Good chance I will cange to MSR in the near future.
To make this possible after decoupling my Vera's I need to use port forwarding. I have read on the Vera forum that some users advice not to do this because it is not safe. After some further googling I find very contradictive opinions wether using port forwarding is safe or not.
So what is the opinion of the experts on this forum? Is it really not safe and why ? How can I reduce the safety risks ?Second question: should I wait for the upcoming 7.32 firmware update of Vera (I know some of you are beta testing this), is it wortwile?
@maipensato Such good questions I have myself
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- just setup vpn. Even their app will work, because it’s caching the local IP address. I’m decoupled and still using their app, from time to time.
- I’m on 7.32 beta and it’s the best release yet, very stable. I’m on 4-5 days of uptime while I was in 4-6 hours before. I’ve decoupled with 7.31, updated and then decoupled again.
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Guys,
As posted above, I have run my veras completely cloud free for years and as @therealdb recommends, the most secure way to do this is using a VPN. I have also been using homewave as my mobile app. It is a bit of a learning curve at the beginning but the application goes far beyond just your vera. I for example log in to check on my security cameras which are also blocked from going out of the local network or access my home file or media server. Look into setting an openVPN server. Your router may already be supporting it.
I don't recommend port forwarding. It opens up a non secure port to anyone to access.I can't speak for the new firmware since I have long been nuking it and eventually replaced it and I never had to measure uptime since because the only downtimes or reboot are due to me updating something.
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Ok thank you @therealdb and @rafale77 I have to dig in to how to set up an openVPN server. This is really new to me (meaning I'm not an expert ..
).
I have a Unify Dreammachine router.@therealdb: do you think Vera will release the 7.32 firmware coming weeks ? They have promised end last year it should be released already in January....
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@Maipensato ... We are here to help!
I was a big time unifi user not so long ago and you will find my posts on their forum too. I just completely divested due to poor performance mostly of their APs and routers. The UDM should have the capability to run a VPN server.
Edit: the unifi controller supports an L2TP. Not as good as openVPN but not bad:
https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005445768-UniFi-USG-UDM-Configuring-L2TP-Remote-Access-VPN
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I'll also point out that you can decouple and recouple at will. So you can live with your system decoupled for months until you go on vacation, recouple the day before, go on your trip knowing that the Vera remote access is available if you need it, and then decouple again when you get home.
Now, when you recouple, it's possible that your plugins will all suddenly update to any latest versions, and that may present problems... a day before you travel. So this is not a perfect solution, and VPN is clearly the winner here and the right thing to do. Just know that you're not locked out forever once you decouple, and it's not a factory reset or restore from backup process to recouple. It's a few seconds of your time either direction, and so while not a perfect option, it's an option.
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@Maipensato ... We are here to help!
I was a big time unifi user not so long ago and you will find my posts on their forum too. I just completely divested due to poor performance mostly of their APs and routers. The UDM should have the capability to run a VPN server.
Edit: the unifi controller supports an L2TP. Not as good as openVPN but not bad:
https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005445768-UniFi-USG-UDM-Configuring-L2TP-Remote-Access-VPN
@rafale77 thanks I will read that first