A VPN solution?

[Johno]

I'm keen to be able to securely and safely access the resources on my home network from my smartphone, tablet or laptop whilst I'm way from home. I need a VPN. My first step to achieving that was to check out NeoRouter - it's very good and a cinch to configure with the NR server running on a RaspPi 1 model B and the client on my laptop and other computers at home - unfortunately the free version I'm using doesn't work with my iPhone or iPad apps, but if I fire up NeoRouter on my laptop whilst at work, I can remote desktop to my main PC at home and as far as network access goes, I can see everything on the home network as if I was logged on at home, which is great and what a VPN is supposed to do.
But I want to be able to do things such as stream content from my NAS to my tablet and phone, and NeoRouter doesn't provide a working VPN client for those platforms so I decided to check out OpenVPN, seeing as there are iOS apps for it and my Asus RT68AC router supports it, but then I read that the OpenVPN iOS app isn't that great, configuring OpenVPN isn't that straightforward and it taxes the router.
Then I came across Wireguard which seems to address all the shortcomings of OpenVPN so thought I'd give it whirl.
My first attempt was to read and refer to the many online articles and guides to installing and configuring Wireguard on my Rasp Pi 3, as well as the official site, but after much time spent and setting up a WG server and clients on my iOS devices and laptop, I just couldn't get it working, though I learnt a lot about my router's command shell thanks to the helpful folks here in this and in other snb forums, so thanks all
When the RaspPi kept freezing on bootup I had to restore the disk image I'd saved after installing Raspbian Buster and PiHole on the Pi 3 and had another go at installing Wireguard but this time, using Adrian Mihalko's scripts which make things much easier. But still no joy. To test things, I connect my laptop - with WG client installed - to my phone's WiFi hotspot so that I can access via the WAN; my router is configured to port forward any traffic arriving on the designated WG listening port at my ISP-provided static address to the RaspPi 3 and I've confirmed that this works by checking the network stats on the router and on the Pi. When activating the WG tunnel on my laptop, the app client log shows it connecting to the server and finally shows it as connected, but if I try to ping anything on the remote network, the logs then say that the client is trying to establish a handshake which fails, and this continues until the client gives up, and eventually starts the connection process again. I tried the client on my iOS devices and on a MacBook, all the same result. So I'm close to giving up on Wireguard.
Does anyone here have Wireguard working on their home network? I can't figure out what's going wrong with my efforts.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Maybe you should put "Wireguard" in the title of the post (so people know what it's about)? I had to read all the way through your essay until you got to the point in the penultimate sentence.

Did you try using OpenVPN on your router? I've used it with no problem when I've be abroad to watch Sky Sports. The limiting factor is usually the bandwidth of the internet connection. What is your home internet's upload speed?

 

[Johno]

LOL I probably should have but I didn’t want to restrict the scope to a discussion about getting WireGuard working, much as I’d like to, but based on what you’ve said, I may just try OpenVPN.

Maybe you should put "Wireguard" in the title of the post (so people know what it's about)? I had to read all the way through your essay until you got to the point in the penultimate sentence.

Did you try using OpenVPN on your router? I've used it with no problem when I've be abroad to watch Sky Sports. The limiting factor is usually the bandwidth of the internet connection. What is your home internet's upload speed?

LOL I probably should have but I didn’t want to restrict the scope to a discussion about getting WireGuard working (much as I’d like to get it working), but based on what you’ve said, I may just try OpenVPN seeing as my ASUS router supports it. My broadband upload speed is around 18Mbps.

 

[L&LD]

OpenVPN is supported on many platforms with the ease of just 'importing' the generated OVPN file and will work right from the start with default settings.

Hands down winner for any RMerlin supported router and an ISP speed of less than 50Mbps (up).

 

[Johno]

OpenVPN is supported on many platforms with the ease of just 'importing' the generated OVPN file and will work right from the start with default settings.

Hands down winner for any RMerlin supported router and an ISP speed of less than 50Mbps (up).

I decided to try OpenVPN and after reading some online guides on how to set it up, I've done so and it seems to work fine - I can connect from my iOS devices and browse the home network using IP addresses, which is fine for my needs. The RMerlin firmware makes the setup process easy though the iOS client is pretty dumb, requiring iTunes to import a config file - in this day and age of iOS providing access to it's file system, the OpenVPN Connect app needs updating so that config files Can simply be loaded directly from the file system.

 

[L&LD]

The only way to make Apple listen/pay attention? If everyone could just drop them and then we'll see how fast they become 'mainstream' for basic tasks like this.

 

[Johno]

The only way to make Apple listen/pay attention? If everyone could just drop them and then we'll see how fast they become 'mainstream' for basic tasks like this.

I think it's more the fault of the app developer rather than Apple, who introduced limited file system access In iOS 11 (?) but the OpenVPN app hasn't been updated to make use of it.

 

[L&LD]

The app developer is limited by Apple, I think.

 

[K-2SO]

though the iOS client is pretty dumb, requiring iTunes to import a config file

Why? Just email the file to you. No iTunes needed.

loaded directly from the file system.

A security feature of iOS. Works well as it is. You just need to learn some tricks.

 

[CaptainSTX]

I decided to try OpenVPN and after reading some online guides on how to set it up, I've done so and it seems to work fine - I can connect from my iOS devices and browse the home network using IP addresses, which is fine for my needs. The RMerlon firmware makes the setup process easy though the iOS client is pretty dumb, requiring iTunes to import a config file - in this day and age of iOS providing access to it's file system, the OpenVPN Connect app needs updating so that config files Can simply be loaded directly from the file system.

You need to import a config file for any device or phone so in that regard Apple is no different. But I will agree it is more convoluted with Apple IOS than with other OS.

 

[K-2SO]

But I will agree it is more convoluted with Apple IOS than with other OS.

Guys... standard iOS email client, Share attachment with OpenVPN app.

 

[MichaelCG]

Guys... standard iOS email client, Share attachment with OpenVPN app.

True statement.

Also to note, you can use Google Drive as well. That is how I distribute to my devices.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[K-2SO]

Also to note, you can use Google Drive as well.

Or Dropbox, or OneDrive... whatever you use for file sharing.

 

[Johno]

Why? Just email the file to you. No iTunes needed.



A security feature of iOS. Works well as it is. You just need to learn some tricks.

Email is insecure compared with loading a file. Plenty of other apps are able to load files from local folders on the iOS device so there's no restriction from Apple there.

I ended up emailing the config file to myself and loading it that way, then deleted the email from both inbox and sent folders.

 

[K-2SO]

Email is insecure

What are you setting up? SpaceX server or a home router?

 

[Johno]

What are you setting up? SpaceX server or a home router?

Lol it pays to be careful