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Remote access to an Alfen charger for ACE Service Installer via NetBird

3L only. Reach an Alfen charger on a customer LAN from your laptop through the site's Helios device, and remove the access afterwards.

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Written by Sam Aerts

⚠️ 3L only. These steps open a path from your laptop into a customer's home network. Open it only for one charger, only on port 443, and remove it as soon as you are done (step 5).

Some Alfen problems can only be checked in ACE Service Installer, for example a charger that gives the car less current than Helios asks. ACE needs a direct network connection to the charger, and the charger sits on the customer's LAN. This article shows how to reach it from your own laptop through the site's Helios device, using NetBird. What to check once you are connected is in Car charges slower than planned on an Alfen charger.

⛔ While this access is open, Helios may lose the charger. If your group ends up in the route's Access Control Groups, only that group may use the route. The site's Helios device is then blocked from talking Modbus to the charger: no measurements, no control, and the charger runs on its safe current until you clear that field again (step 5).

Step 1: Prepare NetBird on your laptop

You need the charger's LAN IP (from the site configuration in the installer portal) and the NetBird peer name of the site's Helios device.

  1. Install the client from netbird.io/download.

  2. Set the Management URL to the Luo one (on a laptop that already works: netbird status -d, line "Management").

  3. Connect and log in with your Luo account. Your laptop now shows up under Peers in the NetBird dashboard.

  4. Go to Access Control > Groups, create a group named after the site (for example temp-ace-<site>) and add only your laptop.

Step 2: Give your laptop the route to the charger

  1. Go to Network Routing > Routes. Older routes are here, not under Networks.

  2. Look for a route to the charger's IP as a /32 (for example 192.168.10.145/32) with the site's Helios device as routing peer.

  3. Route exists: open it and add your group to Distribution Groups. No route: Add Route, network <charger IP>/32, routing peer = the site's Helios device, masquerade on, distribution group = your group.

  4. Leave Access Control Groups empty, then save.

⚠️ Add, never replace. Keep the groups that were already on the route (for example Support). If you replace them, the site's Helios device loses its route and can no longer control the charger.

Allow only port 443: Access Control > Policies > Add Policy.

  1. Name: TEMP ACE <site>.

  2. Protocol: TCP, port 443, one direction.

  3. Source: your laptop (or your temporary group).

  4. Destination: the group of the routing peer (the site's Helios device).

  5. Save.

Step 3: Test the connection and check Helios

On your laptop, in PowerShell (not cmd):

Test-NetConnection <charger IP> -Port 443

  • TcpTestSucceeded : True: continue.

  • False: run netbird status -d. Under the site's Helios device, Networks must list the charger IP. Missing means the route is not distributed to you (step 2); listed but still False means the policy is wrong.

  • Then check Helios: live charger values must keep arriving in the live view of the installer portal and in the Helios app. If they stopped right after step 2, your change blocked the Helios device: undo it first.

Step 4: Connect with ACE Service Installer

  1. Start ACE Service Installer and log in with your Alfen service account.

  2. Do not wait for automatic discovery. It scans your own LAN and does not find a charger behind NetBird.

  3. Connect manually by IP: the charger's LAN IP. ACE uses port 443.

  4. Check the settings as described in Car charges slower than planned on an Alfen charger.

Step 5: Remove the access

  1. Network Routing > Routes: open the route and clear Access Control Groups if anything was set there. From that moment the site's Helios device can reach the charger over Modbus again and steers it again. Most visible sign: the realtime measurements of the charger start flowing in again in the live view of the installer portal and in the Helios app, usually within a minute.

  2. On the same route, remove your group from Distribution Groups. If you created the route yourself, delete it.

  3. Access Control > Policies: delete TEMP ACE <site>.

  4. Access Control > Groups: delete temp-ace-<site>.

  5. Check that live charger values arrive. Still missing after a few minutes: open the route again and check that Access Control Groups is empty and Support is still in Distribution Groups.

Still not working?

  • Test-NetConnection stays False: check the route is enabled and the routing peer is online in Peers.

  • ACE cannot log in to the charger: check the ACE and charger firmware versions, and that your Alfen service account has access to this charger.

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