Is there a way to allow acess to an specific device that is out of my network? [closed]

Question

I’m trying to allow my mobile device to connect from everywhere, Wi-Fi or not to an specific port of my Linux server which is running a webmin service.

I’m using iptables to set some rules to which IP addresses can connect to that port for example my house.

I don’t what any other device or IP to connect to my server's webmin service so I drop every other connection with the iptables. Also my house ipadress changes every now and then and this is a problem since I have to update the rule as a result.

However I wish to connect through my phone with mobile data or Wi-Fi.

The MAC address isn't an option since the device will be changing internet connections and this is undetectable through browser.

So the questions is, is there a way to identify an specific device request to let it access or not to my server?

Answer 1

You have a few options:

1. You can use SSH to either set up a tunnel or a SOCKS proxy.
2. You can set up a VPN service on your router and configure your mobile device to sign into the VPN, giving you access to your private network.
3. You can set up a reverse proxy and set up authentication through it, using either password or key based authentication.
4. You can set up port knocking.

Using a SOCKS proxy over SSH is the simplest solution. If you eventually want to have more access to your network (not just HTTP access) then a VPN solution would be a great way to go.

Answer 2

This required type of technique is called port knocking:

In computer networking, port knocking is a method of externally opening ports on a firewall by generating a connection attempt on a set of prespecified closed ports. Once a correct sequence of connection attempts is received, the firewall rules are dynamically modified to allow the host which sent the connection attempts to connect over specific port(s).