After you've purchased an M2M Cloud Cluster and it has been delivered, you need to set up your edge gateways to make proper use of your M2M Cloud Cluster.

This article addresses the necessary steps for M2M Cloud Clusters set up for Machine to machine communication. Meaning that your machines communicate with machines at other locations.

For information about other use cases, see M2M Cloud Cluster explained.
For frequently asked questions, see M2M Cloud Cluster FAQ.

• Preparation
• Connect your edge gateways to the M2M Cloud Cluster
• Make your machines be able to reach each other

Preparation

1. Before you start, make sure to discuss the compatibility of your use case in detail with your IXON account manager or IXON distributor and check the top of this article to see if you meet the requirements.
2. If your use case is compatible with the M2M Cloud Cluster and you've then proceeded to purchase the M2M Cloud Cluster, you'll be sent a form to fill in, asking for details we need to set up your M2M Cloud Cluster.
3. Once we've received a filled in form, your M2M Cloud Cluster will be prepared and set up. Once it's finished, you'll be notified.
   • As mentioned in the M2M Cloud Cluster FAQ, the delivery time of the M2M Cloud Cluster can be up to 3 weeks. This is necessary to schedule sufficient time to make sure everything is set up and working correctly.

Connect your edge gateways to the M2M Cloud Cluster

All edge gateways in your IXON Cloud company will (eventually) automatically connect to the M2M Cloud Cluster. For reliable long-term communication between your machines it is recommended to configure a static VPN address for each edge gateway.

4. Go to Fleet Manager > Devices and click on your device name.
5. Go to Network > VPN, and configure a fixed VPN address.
   • Make sure to choose an IP address in your VPN DHCP range.
   • Make sure that every edge gateway has a unique VPN address.
   • If your VPN range is 10.187.1.0 - 10.187.x.y, do not use the reserved IP address 10.187.1.1.
6. Turn VPN off, wait until the button's available again, and turn VPN back on.
   • This will effectively apply the fixed VPN address and have the edge gateway connect to your M2M Cloud Cluster.
   • If this edge gateway currently does not have a VPN connection. Don’t worry. The next time it connects it will be assigned the entered fixed VPN address automatically.
7. Repeat the previous steps for every edge gateway in your IXON Cloud company.

In the “Cloud connection status”-component on a device page in the Portal you should now see that that the edge gateway is connected to your M2M Cloud Cluster (e.g. “Connected to M2M Cloud Cluster Propack Machinery”).

Make your machines be able to reach each other

With everything connected to the M2M Cloud Cluster, all that remains is to make sure that your machines can communicate with each other.

VPN 1:1 NAT with VPN Source NAT

Using this method you’ll add one VPN 1:1 NAT rule in your destination edge gateways. Your source machine will then communicate with the virtual IP address entered in the 1:1 NAT rule. The destination edge gateway will then forward the requests it receives from your source machine to the destination machine.

You’ll need to enable VPN Source NAT in each source edge gateway. This is the edge gateway at the machine that will initiate the communication.

8. Go to Fleet Manager > Devices and click on your source device name.
9. Go to Network > VPN, and enable VPN Source NAT.

You have now made the changes in the IXON Cloud, but these are not yet active in your device. You will need to push your changes to your device for them to take effect.

10. Click on Push device config in the top right corner.
11. Repeat the previous steps for every source edge gateway in your IXON Cloud company.

Once VPN Source NAT is configured, you need to configure a VPN 1:1 NAT rule in each destination edge gateway. This is the edge gateway at the machine that will be communicated with.

12. Go to Fleet Manager > Devices and click on your destination device name.

13. Go to Network > Firewall.
14. Under VPNLAN, add a 1:1 NAT rule.
15. Enter the requested information (details below) and click on Add.

    Field	Description
    Virtual IP address	Enter the VPN address of the destination edge gateway.
    Source IP address	(optional) Recommended to leave empty, unless you wish to only allow access from specific machines, in which case you need to enter the source edge gateway's VPN address. To allow traffic from multiple machines, create an identical 1:1 NAT rule with a different source IP address. To allow traffic from all machines, leave empty.
    Destination IP address	Enter the IP address of the device behind the edge gateway.
    Protocol	Select the allowed communication protocol.
    Destination port	(optional and only available if protocol "tcp" or "udp" is selected) Only allow network traffic that uses this communication port. This prevents devices from being able to access your machine using other communication ports. Leave empty to allow traffic over all ports. To allow traffic over multiple ports, create an identical 1:1 NAT rule with a different destination port.
    Description	(optional) Enter a description for this specific 1:1 NAT rule.

You have now made the changes in the IXON Cloud, but these are not yet active in your device. You will need to push your changes to your device for them to take effect.

16. Click on Push device config in the top right corner.
17. Repeat the previous steps for every destination edge gateway in your IXON Cloud company.

To communicate with your other machines, your source machine needs to communicate to the virtual IP addresses used in the VPN 1:1 NAT rule(s).

18. On your source machine, when connecting to or communicating with your destination machines, make sure that you communicate to the virtual IP address used in the corresponding VPN 1:1 NAT rule.