An excellent read. I wish they would market the device better to people
like me (us?) that require web security. I might have bought their product.
Might still, in fact, after reading that.

It's important to take some caution to adding and trusting IoT devices.

On Oct 9, 2016 6:42 PM, "Andrew Milner" <[email protected]> wrote:

> This tells you how the bridge works:
> http://moderntoil.com/?p=794
>
> It would appear to me that the bridge has no real need for security as
> such since it only transmits data to acurite web site from your weather
> station using POST commands.  It's security is controlled by your own
> router, and it would only respond to incoming data when it switched to
> update mode to update its firmware.
>
>
>
> On Monday, 10 October 2016 02:28:39 UTC+3, Tim Phillips wrote:
>
>> So I've totally misinterpreted what Apache does for the weewx
>> service....I'm super new to this so I'm sorry you need to explain these
>> things like this. My WAN/IP education is limited to setting up a handful of
>> foscam's on WAN manually as well as doing a RPi webcam project
>> (RPi-Cam-Interface) which worked well.
>>
>> I ALWAYS set a custom password on my stuff and change the username if
>> possible. Actually, I decided to use my RPi as a weather station server
>> because the Acurite "bridge" accessory gave no indication of how their
>> security works, which I disliked. So I took it as an opportunity to learn
>> all about it, hopefully via this project as a starting point. I was not
>> keen on just plugging in their bridge accessory to my router and thinking
>> that's A-OK.
>>
>>
>> I appreciate the clarification!
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sunday, October 9, 2016 at 12:28:56 PM UTC-7, vince wrote:
>>>
>>> On Sunday, October 9, 2016 at 10:10:00 AM UTC-7, Tim Phillips wrote:
>>>>
>>>> My understanding of how my Weewx on my Pi is:
>>>>
>>>> Weewx running as a daemon (service/background process).
>>>>
>>>
>>> almost certainly yes
>>>
>>>
>>>> Apache2 is the web server so a user can access the Weewx service
>>>> (daemon) from a browser on LAN/WAN (if port forwarded).
>>>>
>>>
>>> no.  Apache does not talk to the weewx daemon at all.
>>>
>>> It listens on the port(s) you have it configured to listen on, commonly
>>> http (tcp/80), and makes available whatever data or programs apache is
>>> configured to permit (typically, just a document tree).  Sometimes your web
>>> pages are executable (php typically) but most times not. Initially it's set
>>> up to just return data.
>>>
>>> The default weewx output from the default skins is just data....html
>>> files and image files.  Other skins might have executable php content
>>> (saratoga templates to name one).  Again, the apache configuration must be
>>> set up to permit php files to execute, and there is additional software
>>> you'd install to do that.  There are a lot of apache-related packages.
>>>
>>>
>>>      - Apache2 runs in the background and is the "gatekeeper" to the
>>>> services that request a browser-based information request.
>>>>
>>>
>>> not really.   It's a daemon that listens on the port(s) it is configured
>>> for, and does what it's configured to do based on the apache config
>>> file(s).   Again, usually it just provides a way to read files using a
>>> remote web browser kind of interface, from a well-defined directory on the
>>> filesystem.
>>>
>>>           - Services get access *through *the Apache server to the
>>>> destination port it's assigned to. In Weewx's case it's "/weewx".
>>>>
>>>>
>>> no.   Apache makes some files (in locations defined by the apache config
>>> files) on the pi accessible via http or https, assuming those files are
>>> accessible by the non-privileged account the apache daemon runs as.
>>>
>>>
>>>> BUT, if the port to Apache is 80, and that directs to Weewx, then how
>>>> would I set up multiple WAN access, say if I had a webcam service running
>>>> on the same Pi?
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Again, apache doesn't really 'direct' to weewx, it can make
>>> weewx-generated output files available, if weewx puts it in a place apache
>>> is configured to know about, and if the files are set with the right
>>> permissions so the apache daemon can read them.
>>>
>>> You would configure the webcam to accept incoming requests on another
>>> port typically, hopefully over https with a strong non-default password
>>> required to see the files.  This seems to be what most of the IoT break-ins
>>> seem to be exploiting....folks who just go shields-down in a insecure
>>> vendor-default configuration.
>>>
>>> I'm not quite sure what you're asking about WAN vs. LAN access, but if
>>> you're a typical home user you likely have your LAN behind a gateway device
>>> that blocks all incoming WAN access, unless you forward particular ports
>>> through your firewall.
>>>
>>> Be very careful here.  If you're asking the types of questions you're
>>> asking, I'd suggest doing it right might be a little above your
>>> understanding/expertise at this point in time.  By far the safest thing to
>>> do is to permit 'no' incoming traffic WAN=>LAN even through port forwarding.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
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