Using render farm from home

[Jpjapers]

Hi Guys,

Im wondering if its at all possible that i could use the render farm at my work from home via VPN or with Teamviewers VPN.
Has anyone got any experience of working remotely like this?

Thanks
Jack

[FrostKiwi]

Hi Guys,

Im wondering if its at all possible that i could use the render farm at my work from home via VPN or with Teamviewers VPN.
Has anyone got any experience of working remotely like this?

Thanks
Jack

I setup friend's and families' PCs as render nodes up over Hamachi in the past.
Definitely easier doing so over Windows' native VPN though.

As long as you can get the PC's to see each other over Pings the procedure is the same as with normal LAN.

Upload speed, especially here in Germany, is abysmal if you don't pay the business plans, which are 20x (no joke) the cost of a normal connection.
As such you had to wait up to 40 mins till the render actually started and another 3mins of idle time, while the frame was being saved.
All in all as long as you have a good connection at your work and at home, the biggest problem is setting up the VPN itself and setting it up in a way, so that PCs can all see each other. (which has to be explicitly enabled in Windows VPN as far as I recall)

[Jpjapers]

<SNIP>
I setup friend's and families' PCs as render nodes up over Hamachi in the past.
Definitely easier doing so over Windows' native VPN though.

As long as you can get the PC's to see each other over Pings the procedure is the same as with normal LAN.

Upload speed, especially here in Germany, is abysmal if you don't pay the business plans, which are 20x (no joke) the cost of a normal connection.
As such you had to wait up to 40 mins till the render actually started and another 3mins of idle time, while the frame was being saved.
All in all as long as you have a good connection at your work and at home, the biggest problem is setting up the VPN itself and setting it up in a way, so that PCs can all see each other. (which has to be explicitly enabled in Windows VPN as far as I recall)

I have admin rights on both PCs, Do you have any idea where i could find out how to do this?
Do i need to use hamachi on each node or will access to my main pc be enough to access the nodes?

Thanks
Jack

[FrostKiwi]

I have admin rights on both PCs, Do you have any idea where i could find out how to do this?
Do i need to use hamachi on each node or will access to my main pc be enough to access the nodes?

I honestly recommend Windows' own VPN functionality.
There are quite a bunch of tutorials for LAN gaming over VPN. Same tutorials should work here aswell.
If you have dynamic IPs with your ISP (like most european countries): Get a dynamicDNS domain from sites like no-ip.com. Usually your router has a build in functionality, that updates the IP to the dynDNS. If not, they have a small service that runs in the background and auto updates the IP to the domain name.

Now.. come to think of it... actually since Corona sends the assets over itself with no Network shares needed! You dont even need a VPN! I setup hamachi back in the day to get the Networked assets to share correctly. Now this may all be obsolete.
Just portforward the Ports in DrServer in your Router to your PCs and just give the dynDNS domain. For starters you can just go to myip.is and test it without a dynDNS and just give the IP. It should pick it up as with LAN. From there on out it should work just fine.

I could not get to show up all 5 machines over Hamachi with backburner. I portforwarded Backburner and connected "over the internet" and the network shares over hamachi. Since it would now so much easier with Corona's DrServer Asset Upload, I might do this again at some point in the future :D

[Jpjapers]

I have admin rights on both PCs, Do you have any idea where i could find out how to do this?
Do i need to use hamachi on each node or will access to my main pc be enough to access the nodes?

I honestly recommend Windows' own VPN functionality.
There are quite a bunch of tutorials for LAN gaming over VPN. Same tutorials should work here aswell.
If you have dynamic IPs with your ISP (like most european countries): Get a dynamicDNS domain from sites like no-ip.com. Usually your router has a build in functionality, that updates the IP to the dynDNS. If not, they have a small service that runs in the background and auto updates the IP to the domain name.

Now.. come to think of it... actually since Corona sends the assets over itself with no Network shares needed! You dont even need a VPN! I setup hamachi back in the day to get the Networked assets to share correctly. Now this may all be obsolete.
Just portforward the Ports in DrServer in your Router to your PCs and just give the dynDNS domain. For starters you can just go to myip.is and test it without a dynDNS and just give the IP. It should pick it up as with LAN. From there on out it should work just fine.

I could not get to show up all 5 machines over Hamachi with backburner. I portforwarded Backburner and connected "over the internet" and the network shares over hamachi. Since it would now so much easier with Corona's DrServer Asset Upload, I might do this again at some point in the future :D

Thats a whole bunch of stuff i dont know about right there haha.
I have hamachi installed and connecting my main pc, my render node and my home pc and thats all working, i can ping via the hanachi IP. problem is DR doesnt seem to want to connect using the hamachi IP address :/

I have created a DDNS domain, installed the DUC on my master PC. If i also install this on my home pc and connect to the same DDNS and just port forward the incoming and outgoing dr ports on my router, itll work as lan in DR if i add in the public ip of my home pc? In my router i only have the option to forward to addresses beginning with 192.168.4.(INSERT NUMBER HERE) do i just open the DR ports to each of my nodes and then on my home router, do the same?

[FrostKiwi]

In my router i only have the option to forward to addresses beginning with 192.168.4.(INSERT NUMBER HERE) do i just open the DR ports to each of my nodes and then on my home router, do the same?

One Port can only have one Network interface connected to it. If your PC is 192.168.4.X, then you Forward all traffic for that port to your PC. Which sucks if you have multiple DRServers. That is why Backburner works with a Manager. One Port serves Multiple Servers this way.
I hope you can type Ports in with Corona.

I have multiple machines with Remote access, but only one router. (Ignoring Windows' Remote gateway function) I have Port 80 Forward to Machine A's port 3389 and Port 443 Forwarded to Machine B's Port 3389.
At my university port 3389 is blocked, but 80 and 443 are forwarded. If I want to connect to machine A I type in Windows remote "domainname:80" and get machine A and to machine B "domainname:443" an get machine B. This way I get both machines.

I hope you can type in Corona xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx::Port. If yes then it is easy.

You can setup Public vs Private ports. (Called different thing with different routers), so Router Port 10000 conencts to DrServer Port on machine A and 10001 connects to DrServer Port machine B. If you are indeed allowed to type in ports in Corona you simple type in domainname::10000 and Domainname::10001

If you cannot do that (your router is shit then btw), there may be a way to change the DrServer port inside some .ini file with Corona. (I'm not home, so cannot doublecheck)
An then you port forward those and type in each machines individually as above with domainname:Port

[Jpjapers]

In my router i only have the option to forward to addresses beginning with 192.168.4.(INSERT NUMBER HERE) do i just open the DR ports to each of my nodes and then on my home router, do the same?

One Port can only have one Network interface connected to it. If your PC is 192.168.4.X, then you Forward all traffic for that port to your PC. Which sucks if you have multiple DRServers. That is why Backburner works with a Manager. One Port serves Multiple Servers this way.
I hope you can type Ports in with Corona.

I have multiple machines with Remote access, but only one router. (Ignoring Windows' Remote gateway function) I have Port 80 Forward to Machine A's port 3389 and Port 443 Forwarded to Machine B's Port 3389.
At my university port 3389 is blocked, but 80 and 443 are forwarded. If I want to connect to machine A I type in Windows remote "domainname:80" and get machine A and to machine B "domainname:443" an get machine B. This way I get both machines.

I hope you can type in Corona xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx::Port. If yes then it is easy.

You can setup Public vs Private ports. (Called different thing with different routers), so Router Port 10000 conencts to DrServer Port on machine A and 10001 connects to DrServer Port machine B. If you are indeed allowed to type in ports in Corona you simple type in domainname::10000 and Domainname::10001

If you cannot do that (your router is shit then btw), there may be a way to change the DrServer port inside some .ini file with Corona. (I'm not home, so cannot doublecheck)
An then you port forward those and type in each machines individually as above with domainname:Port

Right so each node needs different incoming and outgoing ports? I Can set public and private ports. I wish there was a step by step guide for this hahaha

[Jpjapers]

Ive just realised this might not be possible without hamachi as we have a Netpolit firewall on the network, so the router serves the firewall with internet on 192.168.4.1 but my computers ip is 192.168.1.105. This confuses things a little. Im fine with using hamachi, i just cant get coronas dr to connect using the hamachi IP.

[FrostKiwi]

Ive just realised this might not be possible without hamachi as we have a Netpolit firewall on the network, so the router serves the firewall with internet on 192.168.4.1 but my computers ip is 192.168.1.105. This confuses things a little. Im fine with using hamachi, i just cant get coronas dr to connect using the hamachi IP.

I recall many problems with it myself, but not how I got it going back then. The Hamachi interface has it's own IP, it is ipv6 has far as I recall. You have to right click in Hamachi and "Bridge" or direct connenct the two machines. You should be able to copy it to Corona and that "should" be it. Back when I did this with backburner as soon as another machine connected it threw the other connection disabled inside backburner. This is why I ended up port forwarding the Manager and the servers just connected over the internet. As I already said, Hamachi only to network map the drives.
Your Router should still be able to Portforward any Port to any other PC on the network though. If not good luck googling that :P

[Jpjapers]

Ive just realised this might not be possible without hamachi as we have a Netpolit firewall on the network, so the router serves the firewall with internet on 192.168.4.1 but my computers ip is 192.168.1.105. This confuses things a little. Im fine with using hamachi, i just cant get coronas dr to connect using the hamachi IP.

I recall many problems with it myself, but not how I got it going back then. The Hamachi interface has it's own IP, it is ipv6 has far as I recall. You have to right click in Hamachi and "Bridge" or direct connenct the two machines. You should be able to copy it to Corona and that "should" be it. Back when I did this with backburner as soon as another machine connected it threw the other connection disabled inside backburner. This is why I ended up port forwarding the Manager and the servers just connected over the internet. As I already said, Hamachi only to network map the drives.
Your Router should still be able to Portforward any Port to any other PC on the network though. If not good luck googling that :P

Unfortunately this all seems above my level of networking knowledge because the firewall between my pc and my router changes my ip so forwarding the ports to my pc wouldnt work the same way. I may just resort to transferring max scenes via dropbox to my work pc and logging in with teamviewer to do test renders. That sucks :(

[FrostKiwi]

Ahh that sucks man D:
Maybe you have someone at work who can get the router to portforward just that one DrServer port. Good luck.

[Jpjapers]

Ahh that sucks man D:
Maybe you have someone at work who can get the router to portforward just that one DrServer port. Good luck.

I have access to both the netpilot firewall and the router i just dont know what im doing with them in terms of what ip i need to put into the router and into the firewall :/

If i forward the private ports 19666-19667 on the router to the firewall IP address what would i need to put in the public ports fields?

I can also set PF targets in my firewall. Ive attached an image. Any ideas what i would put in here?

[FrostKiwi]

If i forward the private ports 19666-19667 on the router to the firewall IP address what would i need to put in the public ports fields?

I can also set PF targets in my firewall. Ive attached an image. Any ideas what i would put in here?

For starters ignore private and public. One Node will be enough for tests.
At Home (where your 3dsMax is open) Portforward 19666 to the LAN IP of your Work PC. (You can find your LAN with ipconfig in command prompt)
Then at work Portforward 19667 to the LAN IP of your Render Node.

Then find your internet IP at work with the website myip.is
Paste that Number into Corona. That should pick it up.

[Jpjapers]

If i forward the private ports 19666-19667 on the router to the firewall IP address what would i need to put in the public ports fields?

I can also set PF targets in my firewall. Ive attached an image. Any ideas what i would put in here?

For starters ignore private and public. One Node will be enough for tests.
At Home (where your 3dsMax is open) Portforward 19666 to the LAN IP of your Work PC. (You can find your LAN with ipconfig in command prompt)
Then at work Portforward 19667 to the LAN IP of your Render Node.

Then find your internet IP at work with the website myip.is
Paste that Number into Corona. That should pick it up.

Theres the problem. In the router the LAN IP is 192.168.4.1 but as soon as im the other side of the firewall, its 192.168.1.XXX so id need to do something in the firewall i think. Thanks for your help man but this is beyond my comprehension, if the firewall wasnt there id have no problem but i dont know enough about its config.

[Frood]

1 cent:

I don´t know if it's possible with Windows VPN but if you really want to work as if being in the office environment, a bridged (not routed) VPN is the only thing that gives you that feeling. This way even network broadcasts reach every node and your (VPN) ip interface gets some address from within the office. OpenVPN can be configured like this and no routing/forwarding is needed and really everything works like being part of the office local subnet.

Another cent:

Because of the mentioned requirements for bandwidth and access to assets, the only option for me personally is to just RemoteDesktop into the office via VPN and work there on a workstation. Windows RDT has greatly improved with Win10 so I even don't see any reason to use any other remote desktop application.

Total: 2 cents :)



Good Luck