Overview

Soracom Napter is an on-demand networking service for devices using Soracom Air for Cellular SIMs and Soracom Arc, which enables you to quickly and securely access your devices remotely. Napter allows you to perform remote maintenance, troubleshooting, or other typical remote access tasks, without setting up any relay servers or installing agent software on the device.

Napter overview

When you enable on-demand remote access, Napter will assign a random IP address (with a corresponding hostname) and port. You can then connect to Napter using the assigned IP address and port, using any TCP protocol, such as SSH, RDP, VNC, and HTTP/HTTPS. When Napter receives your connection request, it will take care of establishing the connection back to your device.

Napter provides a simple and secure way to perform common remote access tasks, such as:

Other common remote access solutions typically require acquiring and configuring a fixed public IP address, which increases security risks as anyone with knowledge of the device IP address may be able to remotely attack the device. Napter provides the same remote access functionality without the risks typically associated with exposing a public IP address.


Features


Requirements

To remotely access your device using Napter:


Limitations

Before using Napter, please be aware of the following limitations:


Compared to Gate

While Napter provides similar remote access functionality as Gate, there are some important differences.

Napter only supports TCP connections. Many common remote access protocols or services support TCP connections, including SSH, Remote Desktop, VNC, as well as HTTP/HTTPS for web-based management, however UDP is not supported.

The maximum duration of a remote access session is limited to 8 hours.

Soracom Gate does not have these limitations, and is therefore better suited if you require UDP connections or need to maintain a remote access connection for longer than 8 hours.


Free Tier

Soracom provides a free tier for Napter with each Soracom account. Refer to the Pricing & Fee Schedule for more information.