We are testing the balenaCloud and have a Docker running with ROS and would like to connect to the same VPN that the device is using to connect to balenaCloud such that we can run all our debug tooling. Is it possible to connect to the VPN from a regular (developer) system? If not what is the advised way to be able to have a VPN (like) connection to a device? Note for this that we cannot simply use some fixed ports because ROS doesn’t use fixed ports.
Hi @jvds,
Welcome to balena forums!
So you can use VPN only to establish a connection to your own specific devices.
I would suggest taking a look at balena ssh and balena tunnel commands and let us know if you think they would work for you. If creating a terminal session with a device is suitable for your use case, it may be a way to go.
https://www.balena.io/docs/reference/cli/#ssh-applicationordevice-servicename
If this does not work, the only extra suggestion I would have is having an extra device managed by balena in the same local network and capable of running the tools (maybe like Intel Nuc), and you could SSH into that device with balena and operate from there.
Hope this helps.
Let us know.
Thanks for the reply.
What we basically need is to be on the same network as the device (which is exactly what you are when connecting to a VPN). I.e. is it possible to connect to the VPN of the device?
The tunnel would work for some cases (since you need fixed port). And the ssh would also cover some cases. But to be fully functional we really need to be in the same VPN. Since there is a VPN connection to the cloud we thought we could benefit from this.
Basically what we want is:
[Balena device (VPN client)] —> [Balena Cloud (VPN server)] <— [My PC (VPN client)]
Hi,
We don’t give access to the Balena VPN directly, it can only be accessed through certain services we provide, like ssh and tunnel. The only option I can think of would be for you to set up your own VPN system as a container and expose the ROS container to the VPN of your VPN container.