Can I use a device with a zerotier client installed as a socks5 server to access back-end LAN resources?

[55106521]

We are an industrial automation control company, our customers are mainly distributed in China and Southeast Asia market, our headquarters in Shanghai, China. After our equipment is installed at the customer’s site, program personnel often need to remotely update and upgrade the program to the latest version through the network. Different from general web or ssh services, we need to be able to access multiple hardware devices behind the Intranet at the same time, and when the program is released, we may have to access multiple ports of the target device at the same time. Therefore, we need a service like socks5.

My general usage scenario description:

1: In our customer site, there is a router, armv6 architecture, this router provides 4G network access, we can install zerotier client on it.

2: At the back end of the router, there is a small local area network, connected to our hardware equipment, PLC (programmable logic controller), HMI (touch device), etc. Our program personnel need to be able to access the back-end PLC or HMI through the 4G network provided by the router for program updates or some other operations.

Can I use a device with a zerotier client installed as a socks5 server to access back-end LAN resources?

I wonder if zerotier can meet my needs? Hope to get a positive reply as soon as possible, thank you!

[AndrewZ]

That has nothing to do with ZeroTier, you need to ask your device manufacturer.
See Create a SOCKS proxy on a Linux server with SSH to bypass content filters

[twistero]

Say you have installed Zerotier on the on-site router (R) and the technician’s computer (T), and they both join the same Zerotier network. You can now access R from T.

To access the devices in R’s LAN, you could a) install a SOCKS5 proxy server software on R, or b) set up some kind of port forwarding on R. Both these solutions aren’t directly related to Zerotier; you can use any existing solution for them, such as using Dante server for SOCKS5 or iptables for port forwarding.

You could also just set up routing on R, so that all the devices in R’s LAN are also directly accessible on the Zerotier network (and thus from T). For example you could set up 6PLANE for the network, and let R assign IPv6 addresses to its LAN devices.

Remember to consider the security implications for all these solutions.