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I am using a RaZberry and am generally quite happy with the product. However I've noticed that the zbw_connect service running on the Raspberry Pi is making outgoing SSH connections to 46.20.244.72 every two minutes. If I block the connection at the firewall the rate of connetion attempts increases to every few seconds. This behaviour occurs on both 2.0.0 and 2.0.1. This IP addresss is registered to an organisation in Switzerland. I have the following questions:

- what is this connection for?
- exactly what information is being transfered?
- is there a way to stop it (other than firewall rules)?
- is there any negative effect from blocking it at the firewall?
- are there any other hidden "calling home" connections in z-way software?

Thank you.

- what is this connection for?
This is find.z-wave.me remote access service

- exactly what information is being transfered?
It does not transfer anything - just keeps open a reverse tunnel to allow you access your box via find.z-wave.me

- is there a way to stop it (other than firewall rules)?
You can turn it off in :8084 UI by removing Remote Access checkbox

- is there any negative effect from blocking it at the firewall?
No, except for absence of remote access service

- are there any other hidden "calling home" connections in z-way software?
There are not a single one. Even this is not hidden since in the manual you are instructed to go to find.z-wave.me right after installing Z-Way to configure your Remote Access (or disable it). So, if you were reading manual, you would know about it

Another question is why is it disconnecting every minute. Usually this means that another client with same ID is already connected. This usually means that you (or your shop) have cloned the SD card image cloning find.z-wave.me credentials. If so, you need to clear them do default and register on your own (if you wnt it).

We are no hiding anything in Z-Way, 90% of the code is even open source (only Z-Way Z-Wave core is not for NDA reasons, v8 JS bindings and small part of webif (:8084 server) for historical reasons - we were just too lazy to publish it, may be one day we do it - but it is not interesting anyway, since it is just a UI for configurators). All UIs and full home automation services are 100% open source

Thank you for the detailed reply. I apologize for the tone of my earlier mail, and I do appreciate your commitment to open source, that's the reason I chose this product.

I did read the manual, but I obviously didn't understand that the remote access was on by default, and since I have a static IP I didn't try to configure remote access. Thinking about it more now it's obvious why it has to default this way. After following the instructions the SSH connections have now stopped.

As for why the connection kept dropping every two minutes - I definitely do not have a second cloned instance running. So that's a mystery.

Thanks again.

Michael

Although this post is a bit dated, I thought I would chime in:

I found the same, ssh connection to find.z-wave.me.

Since my z-wave sits on my internet network, I found this a bit troubling. While I understand this is necessary for firmware updates, and all the other cloud based services z-wave.me offers. Those do not apply to me, I do everything I need via the shell. I do not use the z-wave.me interface OR even the local :8083 interface AT ALL, except when managing (add / remove / etc) z-wave devices. So for me, removing and all communication with z-wave's internet based services was the goal. For the time being, i found this to work quite well:

Terminate the zbw_connect daemon:

/etc/init.d/zbw_connect stop;

Remove it from starting in the future, in the RPI distros I do this via rcconf (aptitude install rcconf if you do not have it installed).

Presto, the ssh connection is gone since its spawned by zbw_connect. This probably breaks fully anything cloud based, including firmware updates (not sure though), so be aware of that.

All that being said, all my z-wave devices work as I previously used them... Via monitoring the /var/log/z-way-server.log log file. I do all the processing via my own bash / php scripts and use openhab as my front end. So it works great for me.

You can also do it from the UI in Maintenance. Just uncheck remote access.

Btw, fw upgrades are still possible. They are check "on demand" once you go in the Maintenance tab.

Thanks for the heads up re. firmware updates. Like I always say, keep up the good work... Love you products!