VPN tunnel for apps

[girish]

@Lonk Thanks! It might be easier for me to test with the package source. On Cloudron, you will need the manifest file to install and not just the docker image anyway.

I am happy to look into the Cloudron side of things whenever the package is semi-ready. Thanks for all the work!

[Lonkle]

@girish My DockerHub link you can pull to Cloudron and install comes with the Cloudron manifest So, rn, it’s working perfectly as an app in Cloudron now, fully operational (just doesn’t have a web interface to change the OVPN file yet but contains everything you need to test it, directly connects to my homes VPN until I revoke the cert which I didn’t want to do until you were done testing). I’ll post the source on GitLab today minus the hardcoded .ovpn file. But can I send you that specific file personally so you can use it for testing. You just place it in the /app/data folder and restart the OpenVPN Client app and your IP for that container will magically change. So you can then test connecting another app to it network-wise (a la a cloudron eqivalent to docker run's --net=container:vpn-client runtime argument) and then curl icanhazip.com the “connected-to-the-vpn-client” app to see if it gets the same IP address as the OpenVPN Client Cloudron app.

Does all of that make sense?

[Lonkle]

@girish I removed the pre-configured .ovpn file that is in the DockerHub version of 0.3 and added the full source code to Github. I tried adding it to Cloudron's Gitlab but it didn't let me create a repository for some reason so I just used Github.

https://github.com/lonkle/openvpn-client-cloudron

If you need my preconfigured .ovpn file for testing instead of creating your own (you can add your converted .ovpn file and rename it to vpn.conf to the root directory before you install or after the install with the Cloudron File Manager, but if you do that you have to restart the app for it to take effect), then let me know so I can send it to you privately. I'll revoke my pre-configured one when you're done testing if you want to go that route (pun intended ).

[Lonkle]

Goals for v0.5.0:

• Add an HTTP API endpoint to change and convert any .ovpn file a user supplies via POST into the container and disconnect from current to connect to the newly added .ovpn

Goals for v1.0.0 (I'd consider it ready to upload to the official Cloudron Appstore at this point):

• Add a full web interface at the base URL of the app which uses the API endpoint in v0.5 to allow a user to submit any .ovpn file and convert it to what Cloudron needs to straight from a web interface (so they don't have to use the API or manually add it in the terminal / file manager, which would be confusing to new users using Cloudron).

@girish Neither of these final features will be needed for you to do your testing whenever you'd like to connect one or multiple containers networks to the the "OpenVPN Client v0.3" app's network. So let me know a good way to send you my preconfigured vpn.conf file for you to use to test the feature. In the end, the API backend will automatically convert any .ovpn files supplied by a user via the API or web interface into a format Cloudron needs; mine is just pre-configured for ya so you don't have to make your own just to test networking between the containers.

[Lonkle]

@p44 I built the OpenVPN Client you can use to change your IP for your app. @girish offered to add a custom feature to Cloudron specifically to allow Cloudron apps to network connect to my OpenVPN Client app. So, not much longer now! I might try to dive into the network code myself but I'll admit, Cloudron's base code intimidates me.

[mehdi]

@Lonk Give it a try, it's not that hard ! I had to do it for the OpenVPN server, it's only fair that you do it for the OpenVPN client

[Lonkle]

@mehdi Alright alright, you've convinced me - Is the flow similar to app creation to build it locally? Won't I need another license to start working on Cloudron locally though? So, the cloud can stay up, and I can develop this multiple app network VPN connection code locally? Normally, I could just use the free license for local dev, but I literally need three apps to test this because coincidentally this modification needs a total of 3 simultaneously running apps to test, the Open VPN Client App, another app to connect to it's network (so one to one connection is tested and confirmed), and then another app to simultaneously (3 apps needed to be installed at once to test) connect to the same Open VPN Client App's network.

I also just read on Gitlap that some of Cloudron is closed source, hmm, I should focus my feature requests on the closed source aspects I literally can't change myself and then merge request it.

[Lonkle]

@girish said in VPN tunnel for apps:

Step 2 is to then have some configuration to let apps use this container as the networking layer. If you ignore the UI/UX, this is really just a one-line change: https://git.cloudron.io/cloudron/box/-/blob/master/src/docker.js#L311 will be changed to the VPN client app's container. If we had a way to identify vpn clients, we can just have a dropdown of vpn clients as the available 'networks' in the app's configuration UI. And that should be it.

https://github.com/lonkle/openvpn-client-cloudron

I am finished with the MVP, it'll be ready for the App Store as soon as I include instructions on install to show the user installing it how to get their .ovpn in the /app/data folder for the OpenVPN Client to pick it up and some other small polishes (like using a wildcard to pick up whatever .ovpn file they put into /app/data and adding the necessary one-liner automatically to the file for it to be compatible with Cloudron's network. But, as of now, every time you change OVPN servers, you have to restart the app. I'm going to use the Cloudron API to do this manually but I haven't found a way to not restart the app yet and just disconnect + connect to a different server on-demand, just at initial runtime.

Oh, and when you need an .ovpn for testing container network connections, let me know! But I'm gonna take a stab (no promises, nervous at how different the Cloudron base code is gonna be ) at getting this working myself on the Cloudron side. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

[Lonkle]

Okay, I'm close to finalizing the Cloudron side of things. But I can't seem to find a function like

getContainerIdByAppId('com.joelstickney.openvpn-client')

@girish Do you know any functions off-hand or maybe some files that I should be lookin’ into? I need the Open VPN client's (sub)Container ID so I can apply it to the other (sub)Containers network(s).

[Lonkle]

I wish I had a better deployment system for cloudron:box changes, this is much harder than regular app development. But that's probably a testament to how well Cloudron's app "subcontainer" packaging system is built.

[Lonkle]

I did find a getAll(callback) and even a more specific getByFqdn(fqdn, callback) lines I may be able to use to get the container ID of my Open VPN Client.

[Lonkle]

I'm now able to connect any container to any network I want on app startup based on the app's FQDN or ID. But even if I create a separate network than cloudron and stick the OpenVPN Client in there with another app. The other app doesn't inherit the OpenVPN Client's IP like it does when you connect the connectors directly on the bridge network using the docker run --net command.

There may be a firewall issue though. Cloudron does have a very specific subnet and maybe I can't escape it without running into a firewall.

@girish @nebulon - any ideas for me on this one?

[girish]

Oh wow, you are moving way faster than we can take a look at this. Great progress. Please give us a day or two to look into this! mon/tue is always a bit slower given all the app updates, support requests etc that pile up over the weekend

[Lonkle]

@girish No problem at all. I can work on porting some other apps in the meantime. Really love the platform you guys created.

And I might be able to figure the answer to my own question. I made an Ubuntu Graphical 18.04 Virtual Machine and installed Cloudron on that so I can develop for the “above subcontainer level” (AKA: box) app code. I am tho running into the two app restriction on localhost - I wish that limitation didn’t apply to custom apps developers are making.

Anyway, thank you again for being as responsive as you have been and don’t mind me updating as I go. Respond whenever you think you can. ️ You guys have done some really amazing work; both of you are inspirations tbh.

[girish]

@Lonk If you are working on app, please do leave a note in the corresponding app's wishlist topic. Just to make sure all our work does not overlap. Thanks.

[girish]

BTW, does the vpn client have some sort of web ui? Would be great to have something where a user can just login and provide connection information. We can look into the openvpn server app for inspiration.

[Lonkle]

@girish
Goals for v0.4.0:
• Modify docker.js to use the container:vpnContainerID NetworkMode for all apps choosing to run their traffic through the VPN (presumably a drop-down box in the config option of an app which will need to be coded in the dashboard, hardcoded to the ovpn-client's manifest ID). Note: Need to remove hostname and any port bindings so that the container takes on the attributes of the VPN otherwise the NetworkMode will conflict with the VPN Client's Network.

Goals for v0.5.0:
• Add an HTTP API endpoint to change and convert any .ovpn file a user supplies via POST into the container and disconnect from current to connect to the newly added .ovpn

Goals for v1.0.0 (I'd consider it ready to upload to the official Cloudron Appstore at this point):
• Add a full web interface at the base URL of the app which uses the API endpoint in v0.5 to allow a user to submit any .ovpn file and convert it to what Cloudron needs to straight from a web interface (so they don't have to use the API or manually add it in the terminal / file manager, which would be confusing to new users using Cloudron).

[Lonkle]

@girish And I will post on each app's wishlist forum post when I start work on converting.

I'm just really stuck on this NetworkMode code. No matter what I do, the NetworkMode stays cloudron even after restarting the container and hardcoding it to use the NetworkMode container:vpncontainerid. Effectively making the app useless. The NetworkMode needs to change, but it's like once the NetworkMode is attached to an app, it stays on there no matter what. Still experimenting as that's the last piece of this puzzles aside from finding a function that can take a cloudron-manifest-id and translate it to a Docker Container ID (so I don't have to docker network inspect and then hardcode it's ID).

[mehdi]

@Lonk Are you sure you are re-building the app container, not just re-starting it ?

[Lonkle]

@mehdi My OpenVPN Client doesn't require any more edits to work on Cloudron. Or are you referring to the "other container" that I'm trying to attach to my OpenVPN Client (to then change it's public IP which I just check with curl icanhazip.com every new experiment)? So all apps / cloudron containers I just restart from the Cloudron dashboard since they are the one's who's NetworkMode needs to be container:vpn-docker-constainer-id-or-name-but-really-just-id (it's hard to parse containters and networks because docker.js has to sent the app names to their container ids to prevent container naming conflicts) - which is a box problem that needs to be solved (particularly docker.js).

I see a lot of mentions of appContainer references and subcontainer references in REing the docker.js code. But they're all just regular containers (nothing is special about them except a flag is set if it's.a subcontainer) so that must be a Cloudron nomenclature.

I think (really just hope) I found my issue:
function containersCreate(req, res, next) { safe.set(req.body, 'HostConfig.NetworkMode', 'cloudron'); // overwrite the network the container lives in

Now why are you doing that to me @girish?

[Lonkle]

THAT WAS IT! Well, there's more to box code changes than just proving the vpn client connection works. But @girish was overriding the network name in dockerproxy.js which took an entire day to figure out! but really

Alright, @mehdi, I'm glad you pushed me enter into box code realms. I'm still intimidated by it. But I've got (sub)container creation down pretty well now.

[Lonkle]

This would be faster using Cloudron on localhost in my VM as I installed it on yesterday to do box code. But, the two app limit thing was too hard to deal with.

[Lonkle]

One of the worst parts of box code is that all these containers (aside from contained cloudron services and cloudron itself) have hshes for names. So, when trying to connect one to another and then inspecting the attributes of all of them is so confusing.

[Lonkle]

To get this app store ready, it might even need modifications to the nginx reverse proxy. @mehdi Maybe you can help? Is there a way, in cloudron to open more than one port? The manifest seems to be a way to publish a random port to forward to the specified-in-the-manifest port

Example:

Using docker container ls --format "table {{.ID}}\t{{.Names}}\t{{.Ports}}" -a - I can look at all the "published" ports. They all seems to be going through a nginx reverse proxy to reach port 80 / 443. And their original port that forwards to that is random (?).

NAMES ----------------------------------- PORTS
0b993ea5-85fc-4465-af5f-a1cd5ea5aeb7 127.0.0.1:43641->8080/tcp
57c94244-112d-4b98-abc4-0f15d6b07ca7 127.0.0.1:40875->8000/tcp
10a9ae64-689e-4765-a990-89a3d5e400d2 127.0.0.1:44749->80/tcp

[Lonkle]

Maybe if I hardcode the bind address to 0.0.0.0. Cloudron hardcodes it to localhost (likely for security purposes).

[Lonkle]

Sorry about the spam, I just started learning Docker two weeks ago now when I started building this app, so it's been all very foreign to me. Had to learn so many weird networking things.

[Lonkle]

I'm having a reverse proxy battle. Everything works now, but the "connected-to-the-vpn-client" app can't access the outside world. Cloudron doesn't publish ports in the standard way, there's some proxy between it all, and I have to RE that to get the apps connected to the openvpn-client to use the proxy somehow. It should just work by default looking at the code, but - there's always something.

[Lonkle]

Okay, so there's a problem here:

appPortBindings.hostPort needs to be set for all of Cloudron's containers or Cloudron turns them off. The only reason I know my OpenVPN client works is because I curl icanhazip.com before box stops the container for not passing all of it's "checks."

But this is a special case. To connect to the VPN Client - the app container can't have a hostPort as it inherits that from the VPN Client as part of the connection. But Cloudron requires the App published to have a port (I hardcode it not to), so even though the app works, Cloudron will stop it from running eventually once it fails enough checks until I figure out how to deal with this reverse proxy thing works.

[Lonkle]

I just have to figure out how to let appdb.js know that there's an actual http port set, it's just not in the **connected-to-vpn-client's`` app / container, it's defined in the OpenVPN Client's app / container.

Barring figuring that out though, I have to have the openvpn-client app mirror the ports that are exposed for every app connnected to it (right now, I'm just letting one container connect since Cloudron doesn't support more than one exposed port). Ahhh, so basically the OpenVPN client's http port has to be variable depending on the connecting app (or apps if people want to connect more than one other app to it at a time - I only personally need one app connected to it). So that's manifest.js code to also modify to get this to work.

[Lonkle]

I'm climbing a mountain too tall for me rn.

[marcusquinn]

The first step in making any tunnel is digging a hole

[Lonkle]

Nice metaphor for a VPN tunnel app. I’m so close to get this working. I found the SQL that inserts the httpPort into the DB so I’m going to try to have the container “attaching to the openvpn client” inherit the port and port type from the VPN Client while still having it be discoverable by the database. Let’s hope this works.

[Lonkle]

Alright, I got the container both running and entered into the database (I'm pretty sure). So Cloudron can "see" the app. I copied the exposed and host ports to the container returned at the end of createContainer while nulling them during the containers initialization.

That seems to be enough for app discovery, now to see if I can get the reverse proxy working which will be the last piece of the puzzle I hope.

[marcusquinn]

Dig, Forest, Dig!

[Lonkle]

@marcusquinn I’m not positive but I think the Nguni reverse proxy is being fed a null or 0 hostPort. The exposedPort is part of Cloudron’s environment variables. Maybe I’ll add the hostPort to that and read it back during reverse proxy configuration.

[Lonkle]

I hope nobody finds me logging my development on this app to be annoying. I needed a place to keep all of these new concepts in my head. I’ve never worked with Docker or Cloudron before this month and I’m trying to jot down my experiences for me to read later until I complete this.

If I hardcode the health checks to all pass. My app connected to the VPN stays connected and it’s terminal working but never gets past the “Starting” phase until it times out in like ten minutes (the reverse proxy doesn’t work so neither does Let’s Encrypt...which then times out the app). This is because it’s reverse proxy isn’t set up correctly. I believe that the NGINX reverse proxy either gets the wrong hostPort or the wrong exposedPort or both.

I’m actually amazed that I got this far. Because both the hostPort does make it into the database now for it to be discoverable by Cloudron. But why the reverse proxy WriteNginxReverseConfig receives different info than `apps.js’ “add-to-db” function (since that happens first) is really confusing. I’ll keep working on it though. I can’t hardcode (wellll...I technically can for the same container but don’t want to).

Another problem is that my NetworkMode to container changes only (for now) take effect upon installation. Have to figure out why that is - but I also have some guesses.

Nobody told me box code was this hard.

[Lonkle]

And I’m still using the app’s FQDN variable to hardcode its attachment to the VPN rather than its manifest ID since I can’t find the function to read an app’s manifest to get its ID. So much more work to be done (I need the VPN client’s containerCreate option exposedPort(s) to be variable depending on its ID and the app connecting to it) - which is another reason I need to learn to use manifest data. But that’s a simple function I’m sure I’m missing somewhere. @girish - do you know it off the top of your head?

[mehdi]

I suddently have a doubt about what your goal is ...

Are you trying to make the app itself, when it tries to connect to an external service, use the VPN, but still be exposed through normal internet?

Or are you trying to restrict the users from accessing the app itself if they are not going through the VPN?

[Lonkle]

I’m trying to accomplish your first idea.

I made a Cloudron app called “OpenVPN Client” and it works perfectly. It can connect to any OpenVPN Server. I put a basic Apache configuration in front of it just to pass the Cloudron’s Health Check.

Now, my use case is to have a singular other app (any app, but I’m using the basic LAMP from the Cloudron store for testing) route all of that app’s traffic through my OpenVPN Client app. I understand other users may want to connect more than one other app and it’s technically possible to do so via setting their NetworkMode to container:open-vpn-id - but that introduces an extra complexity of exposing more than one port which Cloudron cannot do rn (but is technically possible if girish wanted to make those edits). I don’t mind though since my use case is a 1:1 OpenVPN Client + Other Cloudron app connection.

That’s the entire thing in a nutshell. I’ve had to dig into a lot of box code to understand how to make it happen but my OpenVPN Client app is completely working and even passes all the Cloudron health checks but the singular app connecting to it and routing all of its web traffic through it does not pass the Cloudron Healthcheck because a container connecting to the network of another container is forced to inherit all the network properties of that container. That means, the reverse proxy sees no hostPort (Cloudron is looking for it in the wrong place) when trying to configure the app and thus literally stays in the **Starting up...” statuses (with it’s terminal working and traffic is verified routing through the OpenVPN Client).

[robi]

@Lonk sounds like you need an internal network interface for internal liveness checks and external interface for the outgoing VPN traffic and it's checks.

otherwise you're forced to check liveness on the wrong app just because it's routing through it.

[Lonkle]

@robi Well, the thing is. The second app should pass all the health checks just fine. It’s a web app after all that is exposed to the web (right now testing with the LAMP stack’s homepage). The only reason it doesn’t pass the check (which makes Cloudron stop the container) is because Cloudron is setting up the reverse nginx config incorrectly due to it believing the Cloudron app just installed has no hostPort even though it really does.

The nginx reverse config needs to account for this to make the second app connected to the VPN Client app to even work. Because right now all I can do is use its terminal to prove its working. But the Cloudron network is setup in such a way that it’s needed to reverse proxy it’s hostPort to its exposedPort.

My newest idea is to write the Docker randomized hostPort as part of the Cloudron environment variables it holds and then use that in the Nginx Reverse Proxy config if the starting app doesn’t appear to have one.

Working on box code is harder than app code (especially because I can’t access its database outside of the command line and, well...I don’t really know SQL syntax). But shoutout to @nebulon for making it easier for me!

[Lonkle]

This also leads to the discussion of exposedPorts in the OpenVPN Client app's side of things. Right now, it has to mirror each of it's connected containers (their can be multiple) exposed ports, but Cloudron (for good reason) has restricted app's exposed ports to one.

Dynamically assigning just the OpenVPN's exposed port(s) on demand (to logically sync up with the app that's connecting to it) is needed here and does 100% require a restart of the OpenVPN Client app unless we decide to go the route of opening x amount of the common ports and restricting multiple Cloudron app's from connecting to the OpenVPN Client to one exposed port per app (which ironically could be worked around with a dynamically assigned port forwarding to the real second containers port which then finally reverse proxies onto the hostPort + port 80 / 443 - but that seems like two much work just to connect more than one app per exposedPort at a time).

[mehdi]

(Disclaimer: I am no expert on docker networking magic)

I think instead of trying to find a way to expose the ports from the OpenVPN container, you should instead try and find a way to make it work directly from the app container itself.

Even if you do make it work for the exposedPort (which, I think, refers to the main web port exposed by the app, the one which is behind the reverse proxy, to expose its web interface and such, that's why there's only one: there's only one web interface), you're gonna have trouble with the extra ports (the ones defined in the manifest here https://docs.cloudron.io/custom-apps/manifest/#tcpports ) for apps that use these.

[Lonkle]

@mehdi Well, that would only need to be a box discussion if we wanted more than one other Cloudron app to connect to it at a time. It'd be an interesting discussion on how to make it work with no caveats. But I personally don't see a need to have more than one container connect to the OpenVPN Client container. It's not like you can't add a secondary VPN Client Cloudron app and connect it to another app if you really need more than one VPN connection, ya know?

Since that's how I'll be coding it, as soon as someone tells me how to use the app object in box to "get" the cloudron manifest ID. I'm assuming only girish or nebulon know that off the top of their head though so I'll have to reverse engineer that as soon as I figure out how to get the app passed this reverse nginx configuration barrier (which from the code looks like it's reading hostPort as null which is why no apps are working). It would be nice in that situation to know the function to get the hostPort of another container based on manifest id (my OpenVPN Client app to be exact). But once I RE those last two functions, I can do this.

[Lonkle]

Maybe these functions exist, maybe they don't. REing is hard. I've never really coded in Node (or used Docker) before this month so these are all new concepts to me.

[Lonkle]

Oh, I think the answer to my first question was really simple: app.manifest.id. ‍️

Last thing is - I still need to find a way to get either container environment variables or the app object via only knowing the the cloudron manifest id. Then this should work perfectly.

[Lonkle]

I mean, actually that would create a possible more than one object returned scenario.

That's fine though, I'll just take the first app of that mainfest id (since more than one Cloudron app with the same manifest id can be installed simultaneously).

[Lonkle]

My bad, nginx is writting the httpPort fine and it's configuration looks perfect. I'm missing something related to nginx though because all my HTTP requests to the Cloudron app that is supposed to be routed through the OpenVPN Client app just ends in a "502 Bad Gateway".

[Lonkle]

Other than this mysterious nginx issue (that I think has to do with the exposed port not being available somewhere box assumes it's supposed to be), the app will continue to work and it's terminal will run. So this is all working as it should, except for something about nginx.

You know the crazy part, it's even getting an SSL cert (it must be using some DNS validation for that since the proxy isn't working).

[p44]

@Lonk said in VPN tunnel for apps:

@p44 I built the OpenVPN Client you can use to change your IP for your app. @girish offered to add a custom feature to Cloudron specifically to allow Cloudron apps to network connect to my OpenVPN Client app. So, not much longer now! I might try to dive into the network code myself but I'll admit, Cloudron's base code intimidates me.

@Lonk Thank's a lot this is a very good feature to use. I'm following this thread. I'll wait for first release with a good web interface

[Lonkle]

@p44 It won't be put on the Cloudron Store without a web interface for you to change VPN credentials. That's my 1.0 "this is a finished app" final goal.

Right now, I'm just trying to make Cloudron's reverse proxy for the "app-connected-to-the-vpn-client" work correctly.

So, as it stands, reverse proxy is forwarding requests to port 80, 443 to app.httpPort (a randomized container port, for example 34222), and then what's supposed to happen is port "34222" is supposed to proxy to the real exposedPort but that last step is what it's missing so I just get a "502 Bad Gateway". I can't find any references in the code to how to make the reverse proxy take that exposedPort from another app (the OpenVPN Client app) and use it to continue the proxy-ing. In fact, I can't even RE how official apps are doing so.

This may be secret knowledge that only @girish knows and he'll have to tell me so I can fix this final proxy issue.

It's funny because I'm doing so much work in box right now to get this working. But I'm mainly just REin box code. The changes required to make the OpenVPN client work / function (which it already does...just without a web interface because I can't figure out how to proxy to it's exposedPort) - like, literally the changes to box amount to 5 new lines of code. I'm guessing fixing this last "proxy-to-exposed-port" issue will be a single line of code fix making the total 6 lines of code. So the changes are so simple, it's the knowledge of box networking I'm lacking in. Cloudron uses an NPM library called dockerode to do it's Docker stuff. I thought it was the problem, but it's not - it's working just fine. It's this silly proxy issue. I'm so close...yet so far.

[Lonkle]

Talked to @girish a little bit to confirm that the ExposedPort binds to the app.httpPort via dockerode.createContainer magic. Soooo...there's only one solution. Use dockerode's own library to fix this problem. How to do so...I'm not sure, time to look into dockerode's library. But, the .run command looks promising.

[Lonkle]

I can't believe this whole time it wasn't a Reverse Nginx Issue. I had a sneaking suspicion it was a dockerode issue but I didn't want it to be. I'm scared of making any dockerode changes.

[Lonkle]

This is likely what I need to use (conditionally when connecting the OpenVPN Client app to another Cloudron app):

https://github.com/apocas/dockerode/blob/409a08e310645f5a82234bc3a49b40c98fb98cdd/lib/docker.js#L1432

Closer than I've ever been now. But I still don't know how to use that command yet.

[Lonkle]

Or...or, what if I forced the ExposedPort to mirror the httpPort. That would solve the Nginx "502 Bad Gateway" issue (which is the last hurdle for a perfectly working PoC). I mean, is there really any reason for an exposed port in a Cloudron sense since it just reverse proxies all apps exposed ports to 80, 443 anyway. I think I'm going to try this first instead of the whole diving into dockerode thing.

[Lonkle]

Okay...there is a tiny reason. More like a medium reason. More like a BIG reason. Which is, the web apps themselves most-of-the-time choose to listen only on their exposed port (which means, I'd still need to manually proxy their exposed port to their app.httpPort...somehow). But I'll deal with that later. Gotta try this "mirror ports" experiment first to even see if it works.

Making a PoC is more important than those logistics rn tho.

[robi]

@Lonk what if you virtualized the exposed port? another nginx that you control?

[Lonkle]

@robi That's a great idea. I've thought about it before, and I'm 99% sure it would work...I just can't wrap my head around it (it's roughly what I meant in my last post when I said " I'd still need to manually proxy their exposed port to their app.httpPort...somehow").

Tbh, I think I burnt myself out because I know you're right. I mean, putting another nginx reverse proxy behind the randomized app.httpPort (say 32344) to proxy_pass to an exposed port (say 8080) would so work. My brain is just having trouble processing the concept rn (as in, where I'd need to put that code since I think it would still have to be created at the box level).

[Lonkle]

So, your idea is my next attempt at making the OpenVPN client universal.

Oh, and I need to find a way to make Cloudron expose all of OpenVPN Client's internal ports. Or at least the common ones - because the second app inherits the exposed ports of OpenVPN Client app (so the two apps would need to match up their exposed ports somehow, and a wildcard, open all ports on the OpenVPN Client's side seems like the only way to do so).

[Lonkle]

I feel like I live-blogged my entire RE and development process with this thread.