Louis Smith
New Around Here
Hey guys, sorry in advance if I sound like a noob but I don’t often ask questions online. What I’m aiming to do is a bit of a doozie in terms of difficulty (at least to me). Basically, I set up an always-on Raspberry Pi BitTorrent box. On that Raspberry Pi is a samba and SFTP shared external hard drive.
My goal basically is to be able to access the deluge client (port 58846), deluge web UI (port 8112) and the external hard drive over a cellular network (my android phone). I understand that a VPN connection to my LAN is probably the best way to go about doing this, correct me if I’m wrong, however.
I have an Asus RT-AX88U running version 384.15 Asuswrt-Merlin and I created a server using the default settings and set it to allow the client to access the home LAN and the Internet. I downloaded the .OVPN file and loaded it through the OpenVPN application on android and it works for the most part. It adopts my home public IP, I can see it on the client list on my router home page and I can access router settings, but I cannot access any devices within LAN, not even pinging works.
Same issue with IPsec and PPTP. I also tried FTP, SFTP, and TeamViewer to access the drive with no dice (FTP and SFTP have the same issue as samba and TeamViewer won’t accept authorization to access the files but it can still remote control graphically ssh-wise, interestingly enough). I’ve read about a lot of other ideas; SSH tunneling/forwarding, port forwarding on the router, iptables, VPN split tunnels, TUN vs TAP, encryption settings, configuring the router VPN to set up a route from the phone to the RPI. There’s so much information out there and it’s really difficult to piece everything together, especially because I can’t find many people with identical setups and how they set everything up; not to mention I don't have too much background knowledge on setting up complex VPNs and network configurations.
I tried reading a lot and understanding these concepts but the directions seem generic and vague. I’ve tried looking at logs for the android applications I used and the router but they don’t generate any information when trying to connect, even when I turn the log output verbosity to the maximum level or the application doesn’t have a log feature. Then again, I suspect the issue at hand is fundamentally that my phone cannot access, discover or even interact with other devices in the network through VPN; only the router can and the router isn’t allowing the phone to interact with the local devices, even through the VPN connections.
The android applications I am using are Termux (terminal for android, no sudo access), Transdone and Trireme for deluge, Android Samba Client (official google app), and AndFTP. To be more specific, all applications (including chrome for deluge web UI) basically time out trying to connect. All ports that I am using are default.
I should also add that the Raspberry Pi is connected to Express VPN via its own OpenVPN instance running on Raspbian, which I suspect would complicate things even more. I also understand if this ambition isn't practical without a crazy amount of time spent to make it work. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks, Louis Smith.
My goal basically is to be able to access the deluge client (port 58846), deluge web UI (port 8112) and the external hard drive over a cellular network (my android phone). I understand that a VPN connection to my LAN is probably the best way to go about doing this, correct me if I’m wrong, however.
I have an Asus RT-AX88U running version 384.15 Asuswrt-Merlin and I created a server using the default settings and set it to allow the client to access the home LAN and the Internet. I downloaded the .OVPN file and loaded it through the OpenVPN application on android and it works for the most part. It adopts my home public IP, I can see it on the client list on my router home page and I can access router settings, but I cannot access any devices within LAN, not even pinging works.
Same issue with IPsec and PPTP. I also tried FTP, SFTP, and TeamViewer to access the drive with no dice (FTP and SFTP have the same issue as samba and TeamViewer won’t accept authorization to access the files but it can still remote control graphically ssh-wise, interestingly enough). I’ve read about a lot of other ideas; SSH tunneling/forwarding, port forwarding on the router, iptables, VPN split tunnels, TUN vs TAP, encryption settings, configuring the router VPN to set up a route from the phone to the RPI. There’s so much information out there and it’s really difficult to piece everything together, especially because I can’t find many people with identical setups and how they set everything up; not to mention I don't have too much background knowledge on setting up complex VPNs and network configurations.
I tried reading a lot and understanding these concepts but the directions seem generic and vague. I’ve tried looking at logs for the android applications I used and the router but they don’t generate any information when trying to connect, even when I turn the log output verbosity to the maximum level or the application doesn’t have a log feature. Then again, I suspect the issue at hand is fundamentally that my phone cannot access, discover or even interact with other devices in the network through VPN; only the router can and the router isn’t allowing the phone to interact with the local devices, even through the VPN connections.
The android applications I am using are Termux (terminal for android, no sudo access), Transdone and Trireme for deluge, Android Samba Client (official google app), and AndFTP. To be more specific, all applications (including chrome for deluge web UI) basically time out trying to connect. All ports that I am using are default.
I should also add that the Raspberry Pi is connected to Express VPN via its own OpenVPN instance running on Raspbian, which I suspect would complicate things even more. I also understand if this ambition isn't practical without a crazy amount of time spent to make it work. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks, Louis Smith.
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