Using a VPN Service Provider to get around port forwarding issues?

[damned]

it works similar to the way ive documented
iptables allows you to also listen/forward a port
it would share a lot of common steps - the big difference being this would use a vpn client rather than an ssh client.

[Trenloe]

it would share a lot of common steps - the big difference being this would use a vpn client rather than an ssh client.

Yeah, that's the steps I was trying to get info on (and any other gotchas).

[Myrdin Potter]

I don't currently have an issue at home, but my Asustor NAS is basically a little Debian Linux box and has VPN server and other services as included apps.

I already host teamspeak on it for my game and I may move so I keep track of these options.

I will be staying in hotels in Asia (including China) for the next week, so my tried and true PureVPN with dedicated ip option will be in use again. One day I am going to read through damned's document and see if it is a real option for when I travel.

[damned]

Yeah, that's the steps I was trying to get info on (and any other gotchas).

You need to configure the VPS as a VPN server and then add the iptables entries above.
Then when you vpn in you would get that traffic on tcp1802 redirected to you down the VPN.
I havent tested this but saw lots of info on this when i was setting up my way.

[Trenloe]

You need to configure the VPS as a VPN server and then add the iptables entries above.
Then when you vpn in you would get that traffic on tcp1802 redirected to you down the VPN.
I havent tested this but saw lots of info on this when i was setting up my way.

Yeah, I know the theory - was looking for the actual steps, what to setup, etc.. Similar to the file you did for SSH or, at least, more steps that just "setup a VPN and some ip tables entries".

[damned]

Hey Trenloe - this is a pretty good write up.
https://www.digitalocean.com/communi...n-ubuntu-14-04

[JeffKnight]

Interesting. Can you expand on this please? What additional setup would you need - like what would need to be running/configured on the GM's computer? What else would be needed on the VPS? Where would the VPS be (assuming in some data centre somewhere)?

Root access, of course. OpenVPN server, properly configured (TurnKey Linux has a preconfigured appliance as well as Docker container). OpenVPN client (available from their website). It's pretty easy, and I'd be able to help anyone with config files. And yeah, it needs to run in a datacenter with a public IP. If you really wanted to get technical (like I did), you could buy a domain name and have something like fg.mydomain.com for people to connect to.

it works similar to the way ive documented
iptables allows you to also listen/forward a port
it would share a lot of common steps - the big difference being this would use a vpn client rather than an ssh client.

Yeah, and the difference is mainly speed. TAP interfaces are at least 10x faster than ssh tunnels.

[JeffKnight]

Hey Trenloe - this is a pretty good write up.
https://www.digitalocean.com/communi...n-ubuntu-14-04

Yeah, DigitalOcean is a great company. They have great tutorials for people who don't even buy their droplet VPS (which are pretty good too). If I get time, I can write up a specific tutorial too.

My "backup" server (that I actually pay for - all my other VPS I have from when I worked for another company) is an unmetered VPS through https://afterburst.com/ they are a bit pricier than low-end hosts, but ssd's + unmetered connections are very nice to have.

[Gwydion]

I thought I'd post my update here instead of the Hamachi thread that I've been posting under. So, I've now tested my PureVPN service with my verizon hotspot as well as my blackberry (yes, go ahead and laugh, a blackberry passport) att hotspot. To set mine up, in the "app settings" of PureVPN, I make sure the selected protocol is "StealthVPN". There are several protocols listed and I tried IKEV (which is the default for my setup), automatic, UDP and TCP and I couldn't get any of the others to work. I use kaspersky antivirus and I had to make sure to change the "public network" for PureVPN to be "trusted network".

Once I log in and launch PureVPN and use United States as the location, I wait until it connects and I see the new ip address at the lower right hand corner of the PureVPN app. Then I launch fantasy grounds and click on "load campaign" and then next to "external" under address information, I click on "click to retrieve". I make sure the external ip address matches the PureVPN ip address and then I click "run test". Success! I've tested on a few networks as I said and it works fine for me. The players just need to connect using the normal table alias. (No need for them to have PureVPN).

So, I've now tried HMA and PureVPN and both seem to work for me. I paid just under $60 for two years of PureVPN ($30/yr) and I did not have to add the static ip address feature although some folks have said they had to add that feature to make it work. I'll keep testing the connection, speed, etc. and post back any other updates I find. Hope this is helpful for you!

[Gwydion]

Quick update. I asked damned to connect to my table this morning to test things. He was able to connect, but then the VPN dropped (disconnected) on my end and he was disconnected from my table. We tried again and the same thing happened. I'm going to keep testing to see if there is something I'm doing wrong on my end but for now, I'm not certain PureVPN is working for me. HMA still seems fine, though.