Home IP from not home

[Jimmymd00]

I am wanting to mask my mobile IP as coming from my home router but not sure where to start any pointers would be greatly appreciated. I have an asusRT-AX56U. 

[Eigenvektor]

You mean while you're not at home? You'd need to set up a VPN to dial into your home network, to route your phone's internet traffic through your router.

[Jimmymd00]

16 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

You mean while you're not at home? You'd need to set up a VPN to dial into your home network, to route your phone's internet traffic through your router.

Thanks for your reply! Would I need a paid one or is it something I can set up myself? 

[LIGISTX]

10 minutes ago, Jimmymd00 said:

Thanks for your reply! Would I need a paid one or is it something I can set up myself? 

You’d need to set it up yourself. Look into WireGuard. 
 

You can “host” (parentheses because WireGuard doesn’t use the traditional server and client paradigm, there is only 1 “version” of WireGuard and it works either as a client or server) on a raspberry pi or just a always on Windows PC (r-pi or something makes more sense since it’s way lower power draw), then you can VPN in when needed. 
 

Note…. If your trying to like watch cable TV where it wants you to be on your home IP to use, this won’t work. The apps check if a VPN is enabled and just hard default to not allowing your content to stream if a VPN is active on your phone. Yo I can get around this with a router on a stick that creates a Wifi network that routes over the VPN, because then to your phone “your are just on your home WIFI” since it won’t know your connecting through a VPN… but this would be a lot more advanced so hopefully this isn’t your use case

[Jimmymd00]

20 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

You’d need to set it up yourself. Look into WireGuard. 
 

You can “host” (parentheses because WireGuard doesn’t use the traditional server and client paradigm, there is only 1 “version” of WireGuard and it works either as a client or server) on a raspberry pi or just a always on Windows PC (r-pi or something makes more sense since it’s way lower power draw), then you can VPN in when needed. 
 

Note…. If your trying to like watch cable TV where it wants you to be on your home IP to use, this won’t work. The apps check if a VPN is enabled and just hard default to not allowing your content to stream if a VPN is active on your phone. Yo I can get around this with a router on a stick that creates a Wifi network that routes over the VPN, because then to your phone “your are just on your home WIFI” since it won’t know your connecting through a VPN… but this would be a lot more advanced so hopefully this isn’t your use case

Thanks for your message Would a router on a stick be necessary or would a second mobile do the same? I'm going on holiday and want to use websites/services that validate user by ip

[LIGISTX]

10 minutes ago, Jimmymd00 said:

Thanks for your message Would a router on a stick be necessary or would a second mobile do the same? I'm going on holiday and want to use websites/services that validate user by ip

Websites won’t be an issue as far as I know, but apps can check to see if your phone is connected to a VPN (they can’t glean any actual info, but they can ask the phone “are you connected to a VPN? IF yes, I will not work” type thing. But a website I don’t think would know, theoretically the browser may be able to ask that, but I don’t think that would get passed back go the website. 
 

Another phone won’t work unless it explicitly supports Wifi routing which you would need to figure out how to even set up. I’m not saying it’s not possible, I bet some android ROM has this built in, but you would need to set up routing on the “router” phone so it routes traffic from the SSID it would be broadcasting.

 

TLDR; it’s likely not impossible, but your getting into the realm of beet niche use case and your goog to have to google/forum post your way to victory…  

 

Best bet is get a raspberry pi and set it up as a VPN router, but this will also be a rather advanced setup and you will want to test it all at a friends house beforehand to make sure it just automatically works etc. Again, it’s entirely possible, I have done it, but it does take some learning, patience, and time   

[Jimmymd00]

13 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

Websites won’t be an issue as far as I know, but apps can check to see if your phone is connected to a VPN (they can’t glean any actual info, but they can ask the phone “are you connected to a VPN? IF yes, I will not work” type thing. But a website I don’t think would know, theoretically the browser may be able to ask that, but I don’t think that would get passed back go the website. 
 

Another phone won’t work unless it explicitly supports Wifi routing which you would need to figure out how to even set up. I’m not saying it’s not possible, I bet some android ROM has this built in, but you would need to set up routing on the “router” phone so it routes traffic from the SSID it would be broadcasting.

 

TLDR; it’s likely not impossible, but your getting into the realm of beet niche use case and your goog to have to google/forum post your way to victory…  

 

Best bet is get a raspberry pi and set it up as a VPN router, but this will also be a rather advanced setup and you will want to test it all at a friends house beforehand to make sure it just automatically works etc. Again, it’s entirely possible, I have done it, but it does take some learning, patience, and time   

Thank you very much for your time and knowledge the hunt begins! 

[Alex Atkin UK]

6 hours ago, LIGISTX said:

Another phone won’t work unless it explicitly supports Wifi routing which you would need to figure out how to even set up. I’m not saying it’s not possible, I bet some android ROM has this built in, but you would need to set up routing on the “router” phone so it routes traffic from the SSID it would be broadcasting.

I'd expect an Android phone with a VPN active and hotspot mode turned on would route over the VPN.

If WiFi is turned on and you enable wired tethering it routes over WiFi.  It should use whatever the default route is, which would be the VPN.

 

[UPDATE]

Seems it doesn't, I get no connectivity at all at least with OpenVPN, how stupid.

[LIGISTX]

19 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

I'd expect an Android phone with a VPN active and hotspot mode turned on would route over the VPN.

If WiFi is turned on and you enable wired tethering it routes over WiFi.  It should use whatever the default route is, which would be the VPN.

 

[UPDATE]

Seems it doesn't, I get no connectivity at all at least with OpenVPN, how stupid.

Yea. I am not surprised. I am surprised it even can broadcast an SSID if it’s currently connected to another, I didn’t think it could do wifi teathering to an SSID it’s broadcasting. I know it can teather cell over Wifi or over wire, or Wifi over wire, didn’t think it could do Wifi over Wifi lol. 
 

But the routing is still the issue. You would need to add routes for it to be able to provide DHCP, DNS and ultimately actually route out over the VPN. My vocabulary may be a bit off, but in practice I do *mostly* understand how to do this. I also am a pfsense user for my homelab, and have point to point VPN’s set up and such. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

2 hours ago, LIGISTX said:

Yea. I am not surprised. I am surprised it even can broadcast an SSID if it’s currently connected to another, I didn’t think it could do wifi teathering to an SSID it’s broadcasting. I know it can teather cell over Wifi or over wire, or Wifi over wire, didn’t think it could do Wifi over Wifi lol. 
 

But the routing is still the issue. You would need to add routes for it to be able to provide DHCP, DNS and ultimately actually route out over the VPN. My vocabulary may be a bit off, but in practice I do *mostly* understand how to do this. I also am a pfsense user for my homelab, and have point to point VPN’s set up and such. 

It does normally turn off WiFi when you enable HotSpot, but you can bypass this with an option under Advanced titled WiFi Sharing "share your phones WiFi connection in addition to mobile data".  It was a little confusing as I had to turn WiFi back on again after enabling this, though I did the VPN test over mobile data.

 

As for routing that's the point, tethering/HotSpot should be using the default route and the VPN surely changes that to the VPN itself  So its puzzling why it doesn't correctly configure NAT over the VPN but still tries to use the old route.  It should be perfectly capable, it is the Linux kernel after all.