I’m looking for a way that I could use a raspberry pi so that my PC can access my home network no matter where I am. I’m pretty sure the software on this page does what I want but its all costs money so a free open source alternative would be preferable. Home is far away and I don’t have too much time to set this up which is why I’m on here asking for suggestions instead of just trying over and over until I make it work lol.
Yes you want a VPN. That is a fairly indepth roll-your-own guide.
There are easier solutions out there, if you are time pressed, such as PiVPN. There is the usual caveat that their method of setup is frowned upon. You are running a script from the internet directly on your Pi. I haven’t tried this one, I usually set up openVPN in pfsense.
2 Likes
Yeah definitely seems that a VPN is what I want. Do they work if the Pi gets a new IP address often? Cox has made things difficult for me in the past with changing IPs and stuff.
It wont affect the raspberry Pi, just your ability to access it. You will need a dynamic DNS service, like duckdns.org set up. You will also need something to update the address if it changes. Hopefully your router can do this. If not, you might be able to get the raspberry pi to do it with a cron job or something. There are some guides on the duckdns site on how to set it up with various things.
1 Like
Sweet looks like I’ve got some reading to do. Thanks for the help!
1 Like
I have site-to-site OpenVPN tunnels, L2TP IPsec transit VPNs, white-listed IP access, etc… and all of that works great once you understand it and set it up, but if you’re crunched for time, a solution like TeamViewer will get you remote screen sharing in minutes.
What is your expertise level and what would you like to accomplish with your remote access? Would screen sharing a single machine accomplish what you need, or do you need to access a NAS or other services on your LAN?
If you’re using Macs, “Back to My Mac” might also accomplish what you need.
If you do need legit VPN access to your local network, then the guide @mutation666 linked should get you what you need. You will need to configure DDNS (as @anon54210716 mentioned) as well as NAT/port forwarding on your router.
1 Like
I just moved for school but I have a FreeNAS server as well as a few Pis doing random things. What im looking for is a way to connect to my home network from anywhere and connect to devices just as if I were on the same network with them. duckdns seems like its going to do exactly what I need.
And by short on time I have a few days I just meant I cant play around with it over the course of month which is how my projects usually go haha. I consider myself pretty good with these kinds of projects but this is one I would like to get up and running correctly from the start.
Ok, perfect. Try the BBC guide and let us know if you run into any roadblocks.
1 Like
Here is one way to get openvpn up easily that I have used in the past. https://github.com/Nyr/openvpn-install
1 Like
I have strong swan vpn configuration if you’d like them ipsec is native to mostly clients so may be easier to setup
1 Like
Specifically scripted for the pi:
1 Like