Odd Issue with Control and Invites

Alta Control
1

Bit of an odd situation and I’m not sure if this should be posted here or under General, as this relates to a self-hosted instance AND the cloud instance.

I have a Route10 for my home network, I self-host Control in an LXC, and have never registered my device through the cloud control site - only on my locally hosted instance and using a personal email address.

My boss recently picked up a Route10 for a new office space, and has invited me to join “Home Base” site he setup in his Route10. I do work from home, so I am accessing the link via my personal network. The invite link just sends me to manage.alta.inc - which I proceeded to create a brand new account using my work email. But when I log in to this account, the only devices I see are my personal Route10 as “New Device” with the Setup button next to it as if it’s a new device.

I have never used my work email/account for anything personal relating to Alta Labs / my Route10 - I have never even accessed my personal Control instance from my work computer.

Few questions:

  1. This seems like it shouldn’t be possible/allowed. Would I potentially be able to login to an Alta Labs account on a completely different network and claim their Route10 (if they had one of course)?
  2. Is there a way to disallow my Route10 device from being discovered by external Alta control so this doesn’t happen? I will only ever be managing my personal device from within my home network.
  3. Why can I not see the actual Site / network / devices that I was invited to, or are the invites designed to be used only from within the physical network that the devices are located?

Thanks!

2
  1. The way that Alta Labs devices are discovered depends on 1. what public IP(s) you are coming from and 2. whether there are other Alta devices already on the site, according to https://help.alta.inc/hc/en-us/articles/26752710095643-Device-Discovery . For your case, I would make sure that your boss’s Route10 has actually been set up. If it hasn’t yet, I would definitely recommend setting it up as soon as possible, as any Route10 that has not been configured yet can be configured by anyone that matches the above criteria. This is a balance between ease of setup and security. As long as the device has been set up, there’s no need to worry.
  2. As described in #1, as long as the device has been configured on a site, there is no way for it to be discovered or configured on another site. Even if someone factory resets the device, the device cannot be reassigned to another site/user on manage.alta.inc unless you are also the owner of the new site, or release/delete the device manually.
  3. The site should be in the list of sites in the dropdown at the top-right. You’ll need to navigate to it to access it.
3

My personal Route10 has been set up and registered to my self-hosted instance / site, so why do I have the option to “New Setup” the device inside my work email’s cloud account then? Is it because I have only registered my personal device to a self-hosted instance?

I know my boss has fully setup the Route10 and manages it via an Alta Cloud account. When I login to my work cloud account, I cannot see anything relating to me being invited to that site. I’ve checked under the Site Manager drop down and there is only a single site - which only shows my personal device as a new device needing setup. (confirmed the MAC address showing in the list just to be sure)

Thanks for any and all help and insights you can provide. Just trying to sort these little things out.

4

Ah, that makes sense. Since your Route10 is already managed by a local controller, you can delete the device from your boss’ (or any other manage.alta.inc) site. Since you have already set it up, no one else would be able to set it up unless your local Route10 was factory reset. It showing up in manage.alta.inc is simply a relic of it reaching out to the cloud when it first booted, before you had set it up.