Hi Sergio,
Although the approach you are taking with DDNS and Port Forwarding would work well on a conventional land based network, that is connected to the internet via a Cable/ADSL router, there are several reasons why they may not work on a mobile network:
- NAT (Network Address Translation): Mobile networks, especially those using IPv4, typically employ NAT to conserve IP addresses. NAT allows multiple devices to share a single public IP address. When you connect a device to a mobile network, it is assigned a private IP address that is not directly accessible from the internet. This makes it challenging for DDNS and port forwarding to function properly, as the mobile network’s NAT may not forward incoming connections to your device.
- Carrier-Level Restrictions: Mobile network providers often impose restrictions on certain network activities for security or network management purposes. These restrictions can include blocking or limiting incoming connections to devices on their network. As a result, even if you set up DDNS and port forwarding correctly on your mobile device, the carrier may still prevent external access to it.
- Firewall and Security Policies: Mobile networks commonly implement firewalls and security policies to protect devices on their networks from potential threats. These security measures may include blocking certain ports or protocols by default, which can interfere with port forwarding. Additionally, some carriers may employ strict security policies that prevent the modification of network settings necessary for DDNS or port forwarding to work properly.
- Dynamic IP Addresses: Mobile networks typically assign dynamic IP addresses to devices. This means that the public IP address assigned to your device can change periodically or when you reconnect to the network. DDNS relies on associating a domain name with your IP address, so if your IP address changes frequently, the DDNS service may not be able to keep up and point to the correct IP address for remote access.
It’s worth noting that some mobile network providers may offer specific plans or services that allow for more open network access or even static IP addresses, which can facilitate DDNS and port forwarding. However, these options may come with additional costs and may not be available on all networks or in all regions.
Overall, the combination of NAT, carrier restrictions, firewall policies, and dynamic IP addresses on mobile networks can make it challenging for DDNS and port forwarding to function reliably. If you require remote access to devices on a mobile network, you may need to explore alternative solutions such as VPN (Virtual Private Network) or cloud-based services that facilitate remote access without relying on DDNS or port forwarding.
Our 4G products (4GConnect and 4GXtream) provide good internet connectivity over 4G mobile networks and we know that they are used by some of our customers to remotely access their marine systems.
To remotely access the systems on a boat, the normal method is for the equipment on the boat to initiate a secure connection to a cloud server and then you use an App on your mobile device to also access the cloud server. The cloud server then routes you through to your boat’s data, which you can view in almost realtime. This method relies on the equipment manufacturer creating the cloud system and app to make this happen. The best example of this type of system is the Victron VRM system.
Do you know if your CCTV/NVR system manufacturer offers this type of Cloud service?
The second method is to use a VPN service to create a more generic cloud connection, not specific to one manufacturer, which basically connects your mobile device to the boat’s Ethernet network. Once the VPN connection is established, you can remotely do anything that you would normally do when on the boat.
Setting up a VPN on our 4G Products is possible, but requires networking knowledge and is not something that Digital Yacht is able to provide support on. You would need to find a suitably experienced IT networking engineer.
If you want to explore the VPN solution, I would recommend ZeroTier which can be installed on our 4GXtream and is a free and relatively easy to setup VPN service, that I played with a few years back. OpenVPN is also supported on our 4GXtream.
Best regards
DY Support Team