Hello!
I am trying to setup my router to be accessed from the internet (router remote management).
The final goal would be to reach some devices inside my home LAN from the internet. I have already done this many times before but this time is different. I’ll explain why.
The fact is that now I am living in the college dormitory and the internet access of each room is through a shared router to which I have no access (nor can I get).
Everything that I have tried until now has failed. The following pictures illustrate my configuration. I don’t have access to the Dorm Router and it is protected by a non-default password.
Hi, I think that you’ll need access to that Dorm router, if that’s the one who has the public IP, then you’ll need to do some port-forwarding to your own Mikrotik.
Not necessarily access to that router, but at least one port forwarded to internal router would be required for connections from outside. Ask the admin if that would be possible (it’s one time configuration change). If not, then the only other way is to tunnel ports through some external server, but it’s again a problem, where to get one.
I live in Japan and here they have very strict (bordering on paranoic) security policies. So every modification (however small) to the dorm router is not an option.
I don’t know. Is there a way to know it without directly accessing the router?
I don’t know precisely what a L2TP or PPTP server is, but I am pretty sure that I don’t own one. Is there some service like that being offered on the internet?
One simple way is to run a torrent. If I’m not mistaken, uTorrent uses uPNP. Check the manual.
If it uses, then You will see it’s connection status as green, and people will be able to download from You. To avoid legal problems don’t use movie torrents. Linux Distros are great for this.
I have connected my laptop directly to dorm router and I have issued the following command in the shell (my OS is Ubuntu):
$ upnpc -l
upnpc : miniupnpc library test client. (c) 2005-2014 Thomas Bernard
Go to http://miniupnp.free.fr/ or http://miniupnp.tuxfamily.org/
for more information.
No IGD UPnP Device found on the network!
If I test the same command on my mikrotik router (where I have enabled UPnP the result is positive).
Moreover, to download torrents I use Transmission that also uses uPnP. If I set the Transmission port on 8291 and test that port, the test fails (the port is closed).
So I would say that the dorm router has uPnP disabled. If you know a better way to test this, please let me know.
Hi, I think that you’ll need an external server with a Public IP address on it, but it’s probable that this dorm router block any VPN packet. So can you test if this works:
I’d guess that blocking VPN is unlikely, but even if there was some, there’s always a way how to get around it. Without using anything fancy, SSTP or OpenVPN on port 443 (standard https) should be doable almost always.
@LastStarDust: You need public IP address somewhere. You connect to server from your router using VPN client (it’s outgoing connection like any other, so it will most likely work) and then you can forward some port(s) to you via the established tunnel. You can e.g. buy VPS and configure it yourself, ask a more lucky friend who has public address at home (if they have well-enough configurable router/server), or there’s probably even some dedicated service for this (but I don’t know any).
Hello! I do have a 3 years subscription with NordVPN and it is working flawlessly.
I have a Raspberry Pi 3 that is constantly connected to a NordVPN server.
Anyway I know that NordVPN doesn’t allow port forwarding. Is this a problem?
As far as I know I don’t have any friend with a server (however small) at home.
If I understood you correctly, from the internet (when I am outside the dorm) this is the route that I should use to connect to a device in my room LAN:
Internet → NordVPN server → Raspberry Pi in my LAN → Mikrotik router in my LAN → other device in my LAN
Is it correct?
If the VPN service doesn’t support port forwarding, then yes, it’s a problem. Because port forwarding is exactly what you need.
With the friend option, they don’t need server, just a public address and configurable router (MikroTik preferred of course ) would be enough.
Or you can try to find some other service, I asked Google and so far I found portmap.io (uses OpenVPN) and ngrok.com (uses some custom client), which give one port even for free. The latter won’t work directly with hAP for sure, and the former is likely to not work either (the most common OpenVPN config is incompatible with RouterOS). But it’s not a problem if you have a RasPi in LAN, you can use it instead of hAP and once you get there, you have more than one way to get to other devices. I didn’t test any of these services myself, but they should work.
Thank you very much for the hints. Of course, I would leave the option of using free internet services as the last option. For two reasons: first because, if the Raspberry Pi is turned off, I lose the access to my LAN, but most importantly because I would like to avoid entrusting my info and traffic to an unknown company (whose only income is what can be exploited with my data).
I do have some close friends with a configurable router and public IP access. But for certain is not a Mikrotik router (here in Japan is very difficult to find. I have bought mine from Europe).
Could you please explain in loose words, how to configure my friend’s router to be able to access my Mikrotik router from the internet?
It’s simple. You need VPN server on friend’s side, connect your router to it as client, and then forward some ports from their public address to you via the tunnel. Exact configuration depends on router. VPN can in theory be anything supported by RouterOS (PPTP, L2TP, SSTP, OpenVPN, IPSec).
I just checked the model of my friend’s router. It is a Buffalo WSR-1166DHP3 (http://buffalo.jp/product/wireless-lan/ap/wsr-1166dhp3/).
It doesn’t support VPN and as far as I know, it is not compatible with OpenWrt or any other open source firmware.
I have even reached an OpenWrt developer and he confirmed that it is not compatible.
Anyhow the router stock firmware supports port-forwarding and dynamic DNS.
So I thought about buying the cheapest router on the market that can act as a VPN server and connect it to one of the free ethernet ports of the Buffalo router. Or maybe even a Raspberry Pi zero could work.
For example, do you think that this would be compatible with MikroTik routerOS? https://goo.gl/cGnkNr
I know some asus router support pptp, some newer model even have openvpn, but I don’t know the performance, and I don’t know if it can port forward to the vpn interface (I had some asus router, but I use them as AP only)
update:
just check one of my RT-AC86U with firmware 3.0.0.4.384.20942, it have pptp. openvpn, ipsec, and seems it can port forward to the vpn client, but I didn’t test it as this router is on a remote site, sorry about that
I am sorry but the RT-AC86U is way above my budget. I don’t want to substitute the router of my friend but only to attach a small and inexpensive device to it that can act as a VPN server.
Do you think that a Raspberry Pi zero with an ethernet adapter would do? I am leaning towards that configuration …
Yes you can run a l2tp server on a Pi, OpenVPN and pptp also available, but I will go for a wifi dongle as I had many bad experience with usb ethernet adapter.
) would be enough.