Avoiding VPN Connection for BIM Server

[stefan]

For my classes, I introduce my students to ArchiCAD Teamwork and we have a local installation of the BIM Server.

When we log into our campus network, we can access the BIM Server easily. However, when students are at their studio or with their parents in the weekend, they cannot access.

Our university provides SSL VPN facilities and our sysadmin has provided the external server IP address + opened the port number (1228).

This works to access the BIM Server Manager web interface.

However, for ArchiCAD to connect, it makes a connection to the v18 Module on an additional port number (18008).

So my question is: do I need to open that port too? Or would the BIM Server on port 1228 do this communication in the back (on the server, which is already on the right network - in fact on the same machine).

Right now, we still need an SSL VPN connection to connect from ArchiCAD and would prefer to avoid that, as many students fail with this connection, due to Java, Browser and VPN software differences (e.g. need to allow unsigned kext in Yosemite, putting domain exceptions in Java to allow execution of the processes, etc...).