Send http request from outside the virtual network

[bart.butenaers]

Hi everybody,

We are discussing in the Node-RED community how we could introduce ZeroTier to access our home automation system via the internet in a secure way (without port forwarding).

We used to do it like this:

1. Navigate with the browser of your smartphone to port 1880 of your router.
2. Your router does port forwarding of port 1880 to the Raspberry Pi
3. Node-RED listens to that port 1880 and returns its web interface

By using ZeroTier we can very easily avoid port forwarding to port 1880. See part 1 in the image below, since - as a new user - I am only entitled to add a single image.

Ok so far so good…

But Google voice assistant is also integrated into Node-RED. We used to do it like this:

1. You speak to your smartphone speaker, to enter give voice commands via the Google Assistant.
2. Android passes those voice commands to the Google cloud platform.
3. The Google cloud platform calls a callback url (which you need to enter once in the setup phase), which refers to port 3001 of your router
4. Your router forwards port 3001 to Node-RED
5. Node-RED executes the required commands.

But it is not clear if we can implement this somehow by using ZeroTier (without port forwarding to port 3001). See part 2 in the image below:

Any tips are appreciated!!

Bart