Strangely enough, I have a lot of equipment that is not being utilized all the time. One thing that I wanted to do was to have a VPN connection into the house that I could use when I am on travel. I just so happened to have a GL-AR300M laying around. I also have both a GL-USB150 and a GL-AR750S-EXT as travel routers that I take with me. I pretty much use the GL-USB150 to connect into my companies BYOD network. Since it is a simple usb device, and can do WiFi relay, I use it as the main router for side projects when I am at work. The GL-AR750S-EXT is also connected to my companies BYOD network, but is my main travel router when I am away. I decided to add an OpenVPN connection to my house.
The main instructions for doing this are located at https://docs.gl-inet.com/en/3/app/openvpn/ for the Server portion and https://docs.gl-inet.com/en/2/app/openvpn/ for the client. My server is going to be the GL-AR300M, I will attach it to an isolated vlan known as LAN5, and my client will be on the GL-AR750S-EXT. I first set up LAN5 vlan throughout the network to keep it separate from anything else. The LAN side of my server was connected to LAN5 and the WAN side was connected to my ISP router. Right now while I do testing, I will not have it on my ISPs Router DMZ. In fact I might isolate that out anyway. No need to expose any more ports than necessary. So the process is:
1. set up the server router in the home network
2. generate a .ovpn file using the GUI
3. download the .ovpn file (which is for the client)
4. at work, set up the client router
5. install the .ovpn file using the GUI
6. test out the connection
7. download the OpenVPN client to the personal laptop
8. install the .ovpn file on the personal laptop's OpenVPN client
9. test out the connection
Pretty simple, and it worked out just fine.
This is a blog mostly about techie things, what I am doing to my apartment network on the cheap, IOT, 3D Printing, Raspberry Pis, Arduinos, ESP32, ESP8266, Home Automation, Personal Weather Stations, Things That Go Bump in the Night, and some side issues that need discussing. Remember, sometimes the journey to an end is as much fun as the goal achieved!
