I have a shop to put an embedded system into that uses it's own RFC1918 private network called SteadyShot. All I know for sure is that there is another network, RFC1918, on the other side of SteadyShot's Netgear based wireless router. This other network is presumably Windows based and probably runs Windows 10 or better. In other words, I know absolutely nothing about this Windows network. The embedded system needs a special text file that is ordinarily stored on a share in this Windows network. I envision a samba share in a workgroup that is for the embedded system will need to be accessible to people on the Windows network so that they can copy truss files to it. By making a Windows style share available on the embedded system running Raspbian, I get around having to run software on the client's Windows machines or ask for a login and password and do a CIFS mount.

What needs to be done if the mysterious Windows network is set up in varying ways? It could be an Active Directory network, a workgroup, a homegroup, or a domain. Whatever it is, this mysterious Windows network needs to see the samba share in the embedded workgroup and be able to access it. I could ask for a low privilege account in the mysterious network, but I prefer to provide a share instead and have people in this other network copy what is needed to that share. I'm not the administrator of the customer's Windows network, so I am in no position to request any configuration changes to that network to accommodate accessing the SteadyShot system. I should probably let the customer choose the name of the SteadyShot workgroup and other credentials through a web interface. Preferable if uploading truss files from say drive N in the Windows network to /home/pi/trusses on the Raspbian Stretch controller can be automated as well.

I'm concerned that ports 137, 138, 139, and 445 need to cross the Netgear router for people in the mysterious Windows network to access the SteadyShot Samba share. This isn't ideal. Suggestions on a better approach than letting all those ports through is most welcome. Realize that there has to be Internet access for SteadyShot router which is hooked to the mysterious Windows network. Opening ports can be a major security headache where there is a high likelihood that the customer will say no.

I want to replace the Netgear with a Pi 3 running hostap, high gain antennas, and an iptables firewall. Building a router for less than $30... I don't see that happening. A custom more expensive router is going to be a very hard sell, but done right I could solve solve some security problems and performance problems. I don't think something better than the Netgear R6020 is going to cost less than $150 in parts alone. Note that I can add a real time clock and run openvpn. I am concerned about what antenna to get to plug into the Pi 3 usb on both Pi's. Planning on building both the controller and router into one enclosure. The only proprietary piece will be the controller program which needs to be protected. Controller belongs to the company I work for. The R6020 doesn't have enough gain or maybe it's an antenna problem... The box 48 feet away and 15 feet or so up has problems getting on the wifi. The obvious answer is a better router that is more capable, but that potentially
hurts the profitability of the whole system.
_______________________________________________
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Reply via email to