I have a geth instance running on a server and I'd like to be able to interact with it from other machines. I tried a lot of things but they cant connect.
How do you proceed to, lets say being able to act on that node from an external source?
Tried: In console:
geth attach http://remote_ip:8545
geth attach --rpcaddr remote_ip --rpcport 8545
In a webpage with web3:
web3.setProvider(new web3.providers.HttpProvider("http://remote_ip:8545"));
OK, let's see one by one
geth attach http://remote_ip:8545
Won't work: as geth attach accepts as a parameter an ipc entry (this is just a unix socket). There is a way to expose sockets remotely using socat. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to find it.
web3.setProvider(new web3.providers.HttpProvider("http://remote_ip:8545"));
This one, connects with the remote RPC (not the same as the IPC). You need to expose your RPC while launching geth, with the options
--rpc --rpcport "8545" --rpcaddr "0.0.0.0" --rpccorsdomain "*"
SECURITY WARNING: Exposing both IPC or RPC conveys a security risk, as anybody able to find your machine, will have access. There is no built-in authentication inside geth.
WHAT COULD YOU DO INSTEAD
I encourage you to adopt a more secure approach: Use SSH and attach this way
ssh -i <your private SSL key filepath> user@remote_ip "geth attach ipc:///<path to datadir>/geth.ipc"
Will open you an ssh tunnel to operate with the console. This is as secure and encrypted as it can be.
