Hi folks, I’m just getting into this hobby thanks to the posts in this community. So far, I’ve installed Ubuntu server 22.04 on an old laptop and got paperless working, and I’m pretty pumped. Now I would like to access it outside of my home network on my phone.

I have a Netgear R7000 with Advanced Tomato installed. Here’s my plan, but I don’t know if it would work… So I’m hoping for a peer review of sorts.

  • Get openVPN working on the router as a server.
  • make a certificate for my phone and use it as a client.
  • use my fedora laptop as the CA (?).

I think I need to use easy-RDA to make the keys and certificates…

Does that sound about right? It’s this a good approach or is there something better/easier/more effective?

If there’s a great tutorial around for accessing the home network externally, I’d super appreciate it. Would obviously prefer to do it myself and not pay for a service… I’ve been enjoying the learning experience!

  • Max-PEnglish
    4•1 year ago

    You’re mostly correct, but you don’t need the laptop to act as a CA or anything. A CA is just a cryptographic key, you can generate them on the laptop, on the router, or wherever you want. All that matters is that the router and the clients agree on what the CA is.

    Alternatively, you can port forward from the router to the laptop and run the VPN on the laptop itself. That will open you up to more VPN protocols such as WireGuard which is newer, works so much better, and a whole lot easier to get set up. That stuff just works. Or you can forward the SSH port, and use SSH forwarding using an app like JuiceSSH as the way to enter your network.

      • @rambosEnglish
        1•1 year ago

        Same here, but never tried tailscale or anything like that

        • @DrudgeOPEnglish
          1•1 year ago

          So how does that work? Just using wireguard I mean.

          • @[email protected]English
            1•1 year ago

            there are 3 main steps depending on what OS is being run, but it basically goes like this

            port forward some port to a maching on your home network,

            create a wireguard config through network manager if you’re using that or the wg-quick command, make sure it auto connects

            3 mess with the firewall so that your devices on the wireguard network can see your home network

            there are tons of easy to follow guides out there, this is the one I followed

          • @rambosEnglish
            1•1 year ago

            Personally I use openmediavault (nas software) that has nice wireguard plugin and everything in UI. But you can use native wireguard app or pivpn for example.

            1. Port forward 51820 udp to your server

            2. Setup tunel and client on server

            3. Scan QR code with your client (android or whatever)

            4. and 3. has to be done for every new device