Remotly Relay Server

Why is this so important?

It is very important not to open your main PC to any potential external attacks. Port forwarding is a nice feature but it is also a security threat. Furthermore if you leave your computer on all the time it consumes much more power than a simple Linux server based on a low-power device like Raspberry Pi or similar device.

Below are some of the main benefits of setting up a private connection server either at home or in your company:

• Lowest possible network lag
• Attacks can only be done on the Linux server. But this does nothing for the attacker as all the data passing the server is encrypted with a key that is not accessible by this server.
• No need to port forward data to any of your PCs that you want to access remotely
• Share your server with your friends/co-workers (limit costs)
• Less power consumption
• No problems with GDPR (passing sensitive data via third party servers)
• Wake-On-Lan accessible from WAN (outside your local network)

This guide assumes you have already set up the remote computer (Linux server, Raspberry Pi etc.) you want to make your relay server and have all necessary permissions.

First, we need to access the remote machine's Linux system using SSH client. To establish SSH connection, client will ask to provide host IP address and user credentials. There are various tools you can use at this point, e.g. WinSCP, FileZilla or build-in openssh. From now on all the subsequent steps will refer to the server operating system.

In order to download Remotly relay you can use WGET utility typing the following command:

wget https://downloads.mirillis.com/files/beta/remotly-relay.zip

unzip remotly-relay.zip

If you don't have unzip installed you probably run into "unzip: command not found" error. In that case you can install it by running the following commands:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install unzip

Grant proper credentials:

sudo chmod 755 -R remotly

sudo chown root:root -R remotly

Move all files to desitnation location

sudo mv remotly /srv

Open the configuration file and set desired port number substituting the sample one. If it is possible, we recommend to use the standard HTTPS port (443) to avoid future access problems.

nano /srv/remotly/config/remotly-relay.json

Execute the installation script:

sudo bash /srv/remotly/script/installremotlyrelay.sh

Start the service:

sudo bash /srv/remotly/script/startremotlyrelay.sh

Double check if Remotly Relay service is running:

systemctl list-units --type=service --state=running

There should be remotly-relay.service on the list

Now that your server is running all we need to do is add your private server's IP and port(s) in your admin panel:

That's it! Now all your Connect Anywhere connections will use your own server.
If you have any questions please visit our community site.