Ronaldo

Probably thread drift but for VPNs

Check out the Streisand Effect GitHub project. It is a set of tools that configures a remote server as a VPN for you. So you choose Google Cloud, Digital Ocean, Amazon Web services etc, then you run Streisand on your local computer, it sets up the VPN server and gives you instructions including QR codes that you can use to setup multiple devices, and share with trusted friends. It's free; you just pay for the server (which is yours). For me, it costs me $5 a month and I stream a lot of sports games, movies etc. But it is targeted at OSX and Linux users. I have no idea how to run it from Windows. That said it runs Ansible scripts so if you can create your own, you probably don't need the tool.

On completion it provides the certificates, install instructions for iPhone, iPad, Android etc. It was designed to circumvent government censorship during the Arab Spring. I can confirm that it works through the firewall in countries that have a national firewall that blocks VPNs.

As for a micro form factor ethernet to wifi gateway, router and firewall:

I sure can't find one, but you could do it with something as small as an Intel Edison. I can't believe somebody has created a small travel one. I expect there's a market, especially if you incorporate site-to-site VPN support. Anyone want to build one and market it with me?


https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand
https://github.com/trailofbits/algo

detpilot

Ah, ok. The link said it also can connect to wifi, and of course when I was thinking about buying it, I was in a hotel room with no ethernet connection.

Maingear

You power up the router then go to the admin page and you can tell it to connect to the hotel wifi. Once it connects to it, you put in a web address in your browser and you go to the hotel captive portal and log in like normal. After you do that, any device that connects to your travel router will be connected to the internet automatically without having to log-in individually since the router is what's logged in. It's pretty easy, only takes a minute or so.

Sometimes it won't work and the solution is to turn off DNS rebind protection, which is easy to find in the admin page. I just did that the first time I powered it up and have not had an issue since then. This might sound complicated but it's very easy. If you end up getting it and have trouble, message me and I will help you get it working.


If you want to use the POE feature then you will require a POE injector. If you do that then you will need at least 1 ethernet cord, the injector, and a power supply for the injector. Why not use micro usb with your EFB charger? POE is good for remote network devices where you're going to have to run a ethernet cord anyways but don't want to run a power wire separately. I use it for security cameras and my wifi antennas at home. Saves me from having to run ethernet AND power. Plus makes it so everything is easy to have on the backup battery since my entire network including remote devices are powered from my network cabinet.

That is not correct. You can use it via wifi. The feature is called WISP and it is easily done via the admin page for the router.

Not always true but you usually don't need to login via ethernet. Sometimes I don't even use ethernet when I know that I get the same speeds as wifi.

I'm actually in the process of setting up a VPN on a Raspberry Pi at my home so I can use it to access my network while on the road. I'm very cautious of opening up security vulnerabilities due to the places I go. It sounds like your VPN is more for getting around blocking and wouldn't open your network for attacks like my VPN might.

OverspeedCowboy

I’ve been using a Pi as my VPN server for several years. Works good lasts long time. Costs absolutely nothing. I use OpenVPN as the client on my various devices. Again, costs nothing. Tunnelblick for my mac vpn client. Simple to import the client certificates on your device(s). Result is an encrypted tunnel for all my devices to my home network while on the road, and my apparent ip address is that of my home network. I also put Pihole on the Pi containing the server, thus blocking ads network-wide including my VPN connections. Very easy to follow guides to do any of the above via a web search. Be sure to change the default port for your VPN server.

Maingear

Pretty much the same setup I plan on doing except I don't plan on using pihole over VPN due to latency. I can set it up with the travel router too so my entire network will be connected. It will be nice to have network printers, drives, and controllers available while traveling.

Do you see any attempted connections not from you in the logs? Do you block any ip ranges or are the certificates enough security?

OverspeedCowboy

I review the firewall logs daily, and nothing any more unusual as a result of the vpn. The client & server certificates protect your server integrity, assuming your chosen encryption level is strong enough will be very difficult to hack the tunnel by sniffing ip packets. Obviously firewall rules need to be correct and robust. The shared drives on my LAN containing important stuff are encrypted anyway, so if they were to be compromised—gibberish. My biggest concern is ransomware...

Note for other readers here...the original project is easy to set up and
maintain. Don’t shy away after reading some of the deeper mumbo jumbo.

Maingear

I will have to get this going next time I'm home. It's a little tough to work via teamviewer while on the road since I don't have certificates setup yet to SSH or RDP to the Pi.

Yes this convo is not related to the travel router for everyone else. The travel router is very easy for someone not too tech savvy.

ItnStln

I’m not sure if it’ll work without Ethernet. I think I’m going to get one to try.

ItnStln

That makes sense, thanks!

I wasn't aware this could be done without connecting the device to Ethernet. I saw your comment about WISP so I'll try it out when I get my router.

Maingear

Make sure to update the firmware on it as soon as you get it out of the box. It has a lot of improvements and some new features.