Ideas needed: Updating intranet websites from the internet
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I have an intranet website that I use to record and manage new tasks and projects for the IT dept. It's basically a help desk system where I raise tickets to carry out a task or record some information.
Occasionally when I am at home I think of a ticket/task that needs adding. But I don't easily have access to the intranet and I don't have any access on my phone.
I'm trying to figure out a simple way to add a ticket from my phone. Normally it is just to set a reminder for myself. So at 2am I will be in bed and suddenly think 'I have to order a new printer for Bob'. If I don't put it into my application straight away I am liable to have forgotten all about it in the morning. At the moment I send an e-mail to myself which I then read in the morning when I arrive at work and it reminds me to manually add the task. I need a more automated solution.
How can I do this?
The only idea I have had so far is to create a Google Drive form. I can then sync the form's results spreadsheet to my work PC and write a script that runs a scheduled task that reads the spreadsheet, checks for new rows, and uploads the contents of the rows into the database that my help desk system uses. Only I don't know if it is possible (or easy) to read the contents of a Google spreadsheet as you can with an Excel spreadsheet?
Any better suggestions would be appreciated.
I don't want to spend more than an hour or so on a solution.
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Do you have a VPN in place? I have one setup so I can connect from home or my phone in ~20 seconds. Connect to internal webpages and do what I need to do then drop out again. Sounds like this is what you are looking for.
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No VPN on my phone. We use Hamachi as our VPN and they don't have an iOS client. 20 seconds would be a little too long anyway.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
No VPN on my phone. We use Hamachi as our VPN and they don't have an iOS client. 20 seconds would be a little too long anyway.
Pertino has that
I have not tried it though, yet. Need to do that. But they've recently released it.Hamachi development stopped around the time that the iPhone first came out, I believe, so not likely to see new clients for that. There are actually fewer clients for Hamachi today than there used to be. The Linux one went away, for example.
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Indeed. So VPN is out. That's why I'm after any alternative solutions.
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What about emailing in the ticket and putting it in that way?
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That could work. How would I go about it?
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Do you not have a Static IP to setup a normal VPN? that or just opening up the ssl version of the site would be the normal way.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
That could work. How would I go about it?
Is that to me? You could make a mailbox just for this. Just like, say, Spiceworks does. You'll need to discipline yourself to using a standard format or this will be a lot of work. You make a script that reads the mailbox (this is actually very easy) and submits the ticket for you or whatever. If you don't want to modify the existing app, you can make a script that is external that does this. The script can use IMAP, for example, to read the email and then use HTTP to submit the ticket. No need for it to be "connected" in any way.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
Do you not have a Static IP to setup a normal VPN? that or just opening up the ssl version of the site would be the normal way.
I do, but I don't want to expose the site to the internet for what is a very trivial purpose.
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@scottalanmiller said:
The script can use IMAP, for example, to read the email
Thanks. I will look into this. It's not something I have ever done before.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
Do you not have a Static IP to setup a normal VPN? that or just opening up the ssl version of the site would be the normal way.
I do, but I don't want to expose the site to the internet for what is a very trivial purpose.
No real danger in doing it. HTTPS/SSL is going to be just as secure as a VPN.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
No real danger in doing it. HTTPS/SSL is going to be just as secure as a VPN.
It actually IS a VPN under the hood.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
No real danger in doing it. HTTPS/SSL is going to be just as secure as a VPN.
It actually IS a VPN under the hood.
True. But for some reason people seem to think a VPN is solely layer three (and therefore more secure) and not layer 7 just like any other SSL implementation.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
No real danger in doing it.
Oh, OK. I wasn't sure. In that case, that is probably the easiest solution.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
True. But for some reason people seem to think a VPN is solely layer three (and therefore more secure) and not layer 7 just like any other SSL implementation.
Yeah, an SSL VPN is layer seven, no matter where it happens or what it is called.
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OK, SSL experts - newbie here! I currently have one UCC SSL Cert, which I use for my Exchange server. So that is mapped to the domain remote.ourmaincompanydomain.com
Now I could add an additional SAN like intranet.ourmaincompanydomain.com. That will have the same IP address - and our firewall directs traffic to the intranet server or the Exchange server depending on the port (443 for Exchange, another port for the intranet server). So, same IP address, different servers, same cert. That's ok, right?
Alternatively, I could create a new domain intranet.anotherdomain.com and purchase a separate, single cert (or a wildcard cert) and install that on our intranet server. That would be two certs but still only one IP address - is that allowed? I kind of like the idea of keeping everything separate - so if I screw one up I'm not going to screw the other up.
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If this is just for your own use, why use a purchased cert at all?
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@scottalanmiller said:
If this is just for your own use, why use a purchased cert at all?
Agreed, since this is only for you, a self signed cert should be just fine.
Sometime this summer the EFF will provide free basic SSL cert. Then you'll be able to have a real cert that your browsers won't complain about for free.
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No, this would be for an application that several staff have access to.
