Accessing Humax remotely via VPN

[MymsMan]

In another thread @Wallace said

If you want to access your Humax, or indeed your home network, while you are away from home securely, why not set up a VPN to your home network? Tailscale is a very common VPN and easy to setup.

Rather than take that thread further off track I thought I would start a specific thread to discuss what is needed to achieve this, currently the wiki only talks about using port forwarding to gain remote access.

I currently have NordPVN and that has meshnet to link devices securely but it appears to me you need to install the Nord client on each device which might be tricky on Humax and NAS devices.

What are the actual steps needed to achieve secure remote access to a Humax box?

 

[KTO2]

If your router supports it you could use WireGuard as that only needs to be installed on the router plus the device you are trying to access your home network from e.g. laptop/mobile phone etc.

I have WireGuard running on a DDWRT flashed router and my iPhone for ip camera purposes and it works fine. I have just tested it on my phone by entering the ip address of the Humax without an issue.

 

[Dino]

I don't think it's realistic at this stage to list actual steps as there are several possible methods and variations within the methods.

Some may be comfortable using a VPN provider product overlaid over the current ISP setup - research would be necessary to find the right product. Some may be happy swapping their ISPs router and following KTO2's suggestion. Some may be be stuck with their ISP device and be forced to try a pi (or similar) behind the router set up to act as a tunnel end point etc

 

[MymsMan]

Well I tried it and it is very much easier than I had feared , easier and more secure than setting up port forwarding

I already had a cheap nordVPN account (good cashback from a cashback site) so it made sense to use that rather than another VPN supplier but principles should be same.

My eero router does not support VPN installation so that was not an option

I already have an always on windows computer on my home LAN so it made sense to use that but I could have used a Linux or MacOS device, theroretically it might be possible to use a Humax but it might not be powerful enough and difficult to install the VPN client.

• I installed NordVPN app on my home PC and on the laptops and phones that I might want to use outside my home,
• Login into NordVPN account from each device
• I turned Meshnet (NordVPNs name for device sharing) on home and away devices
• Nord assigns a name and IP adress for each device (eg mymsman-everest.nord), but they can be renamed to be more meaningful
• From the home machine in Nord setting you grant permission for "Traffic routing through your device" and "Access to your local network" to each of your away devices.
• When away from home, in NordVPN app instead of connecting to a NordVPN provided server you choose your home machine from the device list
• Thats it! All of your internet traffic uses uour home WAN address,You can access your Humax and other home devices using exactly the same IP address as you would at home (eg 192.168.4.26/m)

@Peso describes setting up a VPN using Tailscale installed on a NAS device