A way to have a device connected to someone's network pass its data to my pc
So long story short uncle owns a car garage and recently something called "Remote car diagnostic" was introduced. To give you guys an idea on what usually happens :
1) a customer needs their car scanned, we connect an OBD port into the car, OBD port is either connected to its own scanner or directly to the PC
1.a) if the OBD is connected to its own scanner there are three ways in which this scanner can connect to my PC which contains programming and actual scanner apps. Either via a LAN cable, or via its own hotspot OR the scanner connected to the local wifi router, of which the PC needs to be connected to, to be able to receive data.
2.a) here is what im looking forward to achieve. Either have the scanner that connects to my local router, be connected to someone's router, and a way for me to somehow connect to it.
2.b) OR have the scanner connected via a LAN cable to a laptop, then have that laptop act as a station that sends data to my PC.
Please, if you know a way explain it step by step, as I've lost braincells trying to figure out a way for this.
Note: I was told tunnel VPNing works, as in, having X pc connect via a VPN i setup on my local server(winbox) or router that supposedly makes the computer overseas act as if it is connected to my network locally
Also worth mentioning that while talking to someone, i was directed into buying an OBD port called "OBD plug adapter ETHERNET to OBD 2 interface
8 Replies
Looks like you're trying to send OBD data through your shop to an external server on a different network, but would like all of the traffic to be treated as if it were within a LAN.
A VPN would be the simplest solution given your needs, however, there can be different levels of complexity in your VPN setup given the networking hardware constraints.
Your networking infrastructure (e.g. router) may already support a site-to-site VPN or other VPN configuration that may be used to achieve this. You'll need to check with your vendor's documentation first to confirm.
If the routers do not support any type of VPN configuration, the next option would be to host a VPN (e.g. OpenVPN, WireGuard) server and set up a client within the other network.
Super slimmed down explanations, but if you give me some more info on the specific resources/limitations you're encountering, I may be able to give some more details.
So i was told tunnel VPNing fixes this but what i think wont work is the following:
As explained, the way the car connects to the client app is as follows, OBD to scanner, scanner via its own hotspot / LAN cable directly to PC with client app / or connecting to my local router.
One issue is, not all customers own that scanner as its also very pricy, what I found was an OBD port with an ethernet cable that you can connect to your laptop.
What i want is the following: customer has the OBD to ethernet, connects it to his own laptop, and somewhow I'd like that laptop to act as a data passthrough that sends it somehow to my client PC so it can read faults and the like
Any questions you have regarding the way the scanners work please let me know, I'll be more than happy to answer
We do have a VPN setup on our network, and we can monitor it and give/ retain access via an app called ZeroTier one
Ah for customer-facing uses of this, I don't think a VPN would be necessary. You'd want to either create a custom application that interfaces with the OBD scanner and establishes a session with your server to process this data via the internet or create a proprietary device that performs all of this automatically (your own smart scanner).
I wouldn't recommend a VPN for customer-facing devices as this would require additional configurations on their end and introduce managing non-company devices within your network.
I was given an app called RemoteConnect, that supposedly works with the OBD to ethernet plug, but I cant for the life of me find any tutorial or guide on how to use it
I assume this is the the custom app you mentioned ?
Depending on how complex the data you need to read is, I was suggesting developing your own software that'll retrieve and securely send over any data you need.
Unless the OBD to ethernet adapter has some funky drivers or proprietary software it uses, I'd assume you'd be able to interface with it to retrieve any useful info
I'm gonna mess with the app today and see if it has anything to do with what i wanna do, if not you're suggesting my best option is to get a dev to make me a custom app for this right ?
If you want to have full control over how and where the data is being sent, building an app that customers can use with the generic OBD to ethernet adapter would be the easiest solution (for the customer). Otherwise, you're looking at potentially having to access their devices or add their devices to your network, which some customers may not be as comfortable with.
The ones i mainly work with are overseas long time customers that do blindly trust us
I am aware how risky this but with how many braincells ive lost so far trying to achieve this I'm willing to take the risk
@DirtyJ do you know what teamviewer iot ? If so would it help with my issue?
Ive also been given a program that apparently is subscription based but I cant for the life of me find the origin of where the program came from or ajy information regarding it on Google