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how to disable obitalk service from administering device?

Started by reltub, January 27, 2014, 03:18:21 PM

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reltub

How do I disable the obitalk portal from administering my obi202? Do I "Delete Device" on the device configuration page? Changing OBITalk Service Settings -> Enable to off on the device is unsuccesful. It appears to be over-ridden by the portal.

ProfTech

Yes. That is the way the portal works. Delete your device from the portal and then you can configure your Obi locally using the IP address from your network. The portal will no longer write over your changes, however note that if you leave Obitalk enabled in your device so you can call other Obi's, Obihai can still access your device if they choose to. They sent out a firmware update to the whole [Obi] world about 2 years ago and received a lot of flack for it though so I don't think they would do that again unless a really bad bug existed in the firmware, which it doesn't in the current build.

reltub

Thanks for confirming that. At the moment, the portal provides a nicer interface than the device's own admin page, so I am not planning to do this right now. However, I was annoyed when I realized that the portal was over-writing my changes to the device's password...

KAura

Quote from: ProfTech on January 27, 2014, 07:57:45 PM

...however note that if you leave Obitalk enabled
...Obihai can still access your device if they choose to.


WoW, that's an eye opener!

Any way around this security hole?

ProfTech

Not that I'm aware of but I'm not a networking expert. I am not really concerned except for the fact that if Obihai can get into it, there may be a way some hacker could figure out how to do it. I don't use Obitalk at this time so have it disabled right now anyway.

drgeoff

Quote from: reltub on January 27, 2014, 03:18:21 PM
How do I disable the obitalk portal from administering my obi202? Do I "Delete Device" on the device configuration page? Changing OBITalk Service Settings -> Enable to off on the device is unsuccesful. It appears to be over-ridden by the portal.
I don't know if that is the best way but it isn't the only way.

Leave the device registered with OBiTalk.  Log into the device's local web server, click on System Management, Click on Auto Provisioning, go down to the OBiTalk Provisioning section, on the Method line untick the default box and select Disabled from the pull down choices.  Go to the bottom of the page, click submit, click OK and then reboot.

ProfTech

That is correct from the view of the Obi but not from the view of the portal. If you disable it in the admin screen, say on Feb 6 and do nothing else for a week, the Obi will stop updating itself from the portal. True. But if you go into the portal on say Feb 28 and make even a simple change, as soon as you click "Save" it will write over any changes that you may have entered thru the admin screens between the 6th and the 28th. It may seem like semantics but the only way to fully get rid of the portal control is to delete the entry from the portal. Of course, from then on you don't have remote access to to your Obi which can come in handy sometimes.

MikeHObi

Quote from: ProfTech on January 28, 2014, 12:05:56 PM
Of course, from then on you don't have remote access to to your Obi which can come in handy sometimes.

Correction, then you would need to configure a static IP or some sort of dynamic DNS service and your Obi's web interface to give you external access so you can remotely control/view the status of your obi.
Obi202 user & Obi100 using Anveo and Callcentric.

ProfTech

Yep, that would be the technically correct way to state that.  :)

drgeoff

Quote from: ProfTech on January 28, 2014, 12:05:56 PM
That is correct from the view of the Obi but not from the view of the portal. If you disable it in the admin screen, say on Feb 6 and do nothing else for a week, the Obi will stop updating itself from the portal. True. But if you go into the portal on say Feb 28 and make even a simple change, as soon as you click "Save" it will write over any changes that you may have entered thru the admin screens between the 6th and the 28th. It may seem like semantics but the only way to fully get rid of the portal control is to delete the entry from the portal.
That's not what I found when I did some experiments in the last few minutes.  On the OBiTalk portal I can change the Webpage Admin password and the Timezone, click on "Save" and despite the "Configuration has been updated successfully." message on the portal there is no affect on my Obi.  Even after I reboot it the password I need to login locally is still what it was and System Status, System Time is still showing the correct time.

ProfTech

hmmm... I was really referring to changes made in the expert mode. It's been a year and a half since I played with that aspect of things so you're probably right. I just got tired of the portal over writing my changes so deleted it from the portal. As long as you're careful the portal can be handy, however there are a number of things that can't be set via the portal and I don't think they are documented anywhere. Since they don't show up in the portal I wonder what happens if you set them via the local admin screens and then make other changes via the portal.

Huib

For an OBi 100/110 you can just set all check boxes to "Default" in the OBiTalk Provisioning section. The device will show up in the portal and the portal is able to show you some stats but the portal is no longer able to make changes to your OBi.

reltub

Quote from: ProfTech on January 27, 2014, 07:57:45 PM
Yes. That is the way the portal works. Delete your device from the portal and then you can configure your Obi locally using the IP address from your network. The portal will no longer write over your changes, however note that if you leave Obitalk enabled in your device so you can call other Obi's, Obihai can still access your device if they choose to.

One bad side-effect of deleting the device from the portal: the portal reverts the device's settings to the defaults. I discovered this last night. That is not a nice surprise.