Creating Your Own VPN

[dabockster]

Hey all,

I was wondering if anyone has any info on setting up your own VPN via your home network. I have a NAS that I would like to access remotely, so I figured a VPN making me seem like I'm still on my home network (corporate style) would be the best way to go. Anyone have any experience doing this?

[Metallus97]

Yes I have! With an ASUS RT AC88U running Merlin and using openVPN.

Merlin is such an awesome firmware!

https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net

My router also runs a NAS (SMB client included in the firmware). Thats not super fast but for my usecase more than enough. But this also would work with a external NAS.

It only makes sense to do it this way, if you have a Fast (CPU) enough router and are actually able to run a VPN there.

What also would work is a Pi or a dedicated cheap PC (that's overkill for most users). 

 

AND: At lease where I live, the ability to access your VPN form the Internet is dependent on your ISP. I have to pay extra.....

[Donut417]

50 minutes ago, dabockster said:

Hey all,

I was wondering if anyone has any info on setting up your own VPN via your home network. I have a NAS that I would like to access remotely, so I figured a VPN making me seem like I'm still on my home network (corporate style) would be the best way to go. Anyone have any experience doing this?

I dont have experience but as @Metallus97 pointed out. You can do it on some routers. Raspberry Pi's can also be used. In some cases NAS's even have the ability to act like a VPN server. Just be aware of the limitations of your home internet connection. But this is a great way to access your home network securely. 

[kompetenzbolzen]

I use PFsense as my router OS which has an openVPN server and client built in. That makes the whole process pretty straight forward.

But you can also set up a VPN server on any other device, like your PC a raspberry or maybe even your NAS itself.

Then you would need to configure your router's NAT to pass VPN traffic to the oVPN server and get a Dynamic DNS domain pointing to your public IP.

If you don't have one (which I luckily have but I heard some people don't) you could even use stuff like SSH port forwarding from a cheap virtual server.

 

I can recommend the ArchLinux wiki pages for very good and detailed info on openVPN and how to set it up.

[dabockster]

1 hour ago, Metallus97 said:

Yes I have! With an ASUS RT AC88U running Merlin and using openVPN.

Merlin is such an awesome firmware!

https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net

My router also runs a NAS (SMB client included in the firmware). Thats not super fast but for my usecase more than enough. But this also would work with a external NAS.

It only makes sense to do it this way, if you have a Fast (CPU) enough router and are actually able to run a VPN there.

What also would work is a Pi or a dedicated cheap PC (that's overkill for most users). 

 

AND: At lease where I live, the ability to access your VPN form the Internet is dependent on your ISP. I have to pay extra.....

So I have a Netgear R6400 v1 that has OpenVPN capabilities. Would that work for this? I did try DD-WRT kong builds on it once but kong has his hex code messed up, so it's practically impossible to restore back to stock. (I found one website from Denmark with the right file, but it was after a week of searching and it was on like page 12 of 30 result pages.)

Also, I've only used VPNs in the context of using something like PIA to secure connections on my laptop. Can I still use the same software (OpenVPN Windows/Tunnelblick Mac) or do I need something else since it's no longer just an internet tunnel?

And I use an ISP local to my area. They have the same policies in writing, but don't really enforce them unless you really abuse the connection (eg run an AWS instance or Bitcoin mine on it). An individual VPN should be fine.

[Donut417]

5 minutes ago, dabockster said:

An individual VPN should be fine.

Its more about your Upload speeds. Because if your transferring data to a machine outside your home, that uses your upload. Not sure about your connection but I only get 10 Mbps upload, so that wont do much. 

[dabockster]

18 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Its more about your Upload speeds. Because if your transferring data to a machine outside your home, that uses your upload. Not sure about your connection but I only get 10 Mbps upload, so that wont do much.  

I'm not too concerned about the transfer speed. I'm mostly transferring Word and Excel files and don't want to rely on Dropbox or Google Drive when I can do it myself.

[Donut417]

9 minutes ago, dabockster said:

I'm not too concerned about the transfer speed. I'm mostly transferring Word and Excel files and don't want to rely on Dropbox or Google Drive when I can do it myself.

Then as long as your ISP is not using carrier grade NAT, then I don’t think you should have any issues. 

[dabockster]

52 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Then as long as your ISP is not using carrier grade NAT, then I don’t think you should have any issues.  

What about the software on my laptop? I currently use TunnelBlick on Mac OS and OpenVPN on Windows. I've only used these programs in the context of connecting to a VPN like PIA or Nord. Will the same programs work for this and allow me to connect to my NAS, or will I need to use another software/protocol combo?

[Olaf6541]

1 hour ago, dabockster said:

What about the software on my laptop? I currently use TunnelBlick on Mac OS and OpenVPN on Windows. I've only used these programs in the context of connecting to a VPN like PIA or Nord. Will the same programs work for this and allow me to connect to my NAS, or will I need to use another software/protocol combo?

Yeah you can use OpenVPN client for windows to connect to your OpenVPN server, i dont know about Mac OS.

[CantCompute]

On 8/26/2019 at 8:57 PM, dabockster said:

What about the software on my laptop? I currently use TunnelBlick on Mac OS and OpenVPN on Windows. I've only used these programs in the context of connecting to a VPN like PIA or Nord. Will the same programs work for this and allow me to connect to my NAS, or will I need to use another software/protocol combo?

I use TunnelBlick on MacOS for this and it works fine

[Nord1ing]

I use ShadowSocks server installed on my local's network server.