Control an instrument in a University research lab over the web from anywhere in the world

[danderson]

I am a University student and am trying to set up an instrument and VI that can be controlled over the web from anywhere in the world. I have been able to control it over the web inside the university network, but it does not work outside the university network. Does anybody know how to fix this problem?

Thanks

[falkpl]

How are communicating with your instrument?  Shared variables, tcpip, published webpage, web service?  Probably a configuration set in your server or a firewall (possibly the university is blocking port out of your subnet.

[danderson]

I am communicating with the instrument through a web published VI. I was thinking the same thing that the university firewall was blocking the port. However my professor said he was able to control an instrument from across the state a few years ago without having the same issue. The firewall could have been changed or something to do with the version of lab view that was used to publish the VI could be the problem

[falkpl]

You can configure the web server to allow different ports as well as specify the IP of the listener, it is possible that the web server is also blocking the client pc.  I have not used the web server as I prefer using shared network variables and a client server architecture over web published vis.  Check the firewall and the web server configuration.

[GregFreeman]

I tried doing something similar at my university this past year and you're ahead of me. I couldn't get past the firewall to get it working even on the network. If you think about it, it's pretty good that you can't get control of something on a university campus computer from home. At least you know its secure :). It is probably a similar problem to being able to connect to your hard drive while on campus computers but needing a VPN connection while off campus (security again as was said in other posts). I would talk to whoever is in charge of the computing, probably for the specific department your research is being conducted in, I'm sure they could help fairly quickly.