Just a heads up from someone who travels a lot: Finding hotels, Airbnbs, coffee shops, library internet, and other free sources that has better then 25Mb rates up/down is a rare event, at least for me, and as you are only planning on doing banking and other such activities with your home VPN, you may just want to start with something cheaper at home, like a AR300M16 which sometimes goes on sell for less then $25. My AR300M hardware has been rock solid for years and uses very little power. It is working as a server now.
You can also start with just the home router, and run the OpenVPN or Wireguard client on your PC and phone. That is how I survived for most of January and February when my present location tripped some bugs in the AR750s firmware, and until I was able to update to the new 3.212 beta code, I had to run without my router, but I still was able to use my US based VPN servers.
Right now Iām on 10Mb up/down, and using both Wireguard and OpenVPN on the AR750s, which is not that much faster then a AR300M16, I can still stream at 720p video through my US based VPN servers.
Last recommendation is if you can, give yourself a couple months to setup, test and allow some burn-in time for your new routers, before you really need to use them traveling. I spent time in coffee shops and libraries, using free WIFI, making sure my remote router and the different VPN clients all worked, as while Iām on travel, I just want things to work, and I want to know my VPN backup plan if something fails.
The GL-MV1000W BrumeW only has 2.4GHz wifi. On my BrumeW as a Repeater with 2.4GHz wifi for both WWAN and WLAN, I only get ~20MHz speed over OpenVPN because a single radio cannot transmit and receive in both directions at the same time. I actually bought a TP-Link 5GHz USB wifi dongle ($15) that plugs into the USB 2.0 port, which then gives me ~35Mbps speed over OpenVPN. If I use the Ethernet ports for both WAN and LAN, then I get ~80Mbps over OpenVPN. Although the Brume-W has a CPU with hardware cryptographic acceleration, you will likely not be able to get full benefits over wifi and a ālesserā router may suffice.
I do not work for and I do not have formal association with GL.iNet
DynDNS is a DDNS provider. If that is the only choice, I think they have a free tier for 1-3 domain names. Otherwise Iāve used afraid.org, and that worked well for me for the last five years.
The GL-inet routers have a DDNS preset, with a name listed on the label, if you try it that way.
Thanks for all these precisions, I will keep that in mind when chosing the router.
My main work activities are web-meetings and RDP access to my office desktop, so I indeed do not require that much bandwith (I was able to manage them with my 6Mbits connection in the past).
Yes youāre perfectly right. My goal was also to have everything set up in the next months to able to
test it in real conditions before going abroad in septembre.
Would like to add a question here - if something happens to the home setup, is there a way to remotely turn the router on and off in case no one is at home?
I think @Lovette is asking if there is a way of rebooting the router if the VPN goes down, so you canāt access the network. So yes, I think the normal stupid wifi switch wouldnāt work, unless it was running a scheduled reboot. You might be able to switch it off, but then you would lose access to it to turn it back on.
Another way to do it might be to run a cron script on the router itself and reboot it when an internet connection is lost, or when the server goes down.
Another way, and I donāt recall it being set out here, is to run a script on the router itself.
Except to turn the router on and off if something happens to the home setup, I donāt have much details on the situation, in case Lovette is not able to access a remote-controlled power socket or strip.
I have the same issue when I am away out-of-country for weeks, and I also considered a smart plug (I use TP-Link HS103) to schedule reboots nightly in such situations, so hopefully equipment will come back up after at most 24 hours. Another thought I had was to use 1 of my old LTE smartphones only to provide wifi to the smart plug, which would not use much dataā¦
Thanks for the tip on the device on Amazon, It looks very interesting and I have to research it some more and on similar devices. For the benefit to me, itās a little pricey, after shipping and import fees to my country.
I do not work for and I do not have formal association with GL.iNet
I am a beginner user currently using OpenVPN (ExpressVPN) with Opal. This thread inspired me to setup my own home server (device TBD) with my travel Opal (to set up as client). Based on reading this thread, my plans are:
For Home:
(1) Buy a new device to connect to my existing Linksys mesh routers at home - should I buy another Opal (Itās a tiny travel router, not sure if itās designed for 24/7 use)?
(2) Can I (should I) program the new home server to reboot every night or ok just to leave it on 24/7?
(3) The on/off switch idea is just extra protection in case the home server āhangsā for whatever unexpected reason
(4) Understand I need to learn to āport forwardā for this setup, should use Wireguard (instead of Open VPN), and would need a dedicated IP address
For the Opal client:
(1) Believe I just need to learn to set it up as a Wireguard client
(2) If I buy a Mudi for mobile use, can I program it as a 2nd Wireguard client to connect back to the home server as well?
I donāt have any experience using a GL-inet as a home router; I use them for travel. But I will briefly describe my setup.
I have an Asus AC86U in my main home location. It has two OpenVPN servers and could have several wireguard servers, but I donāt have the wireguard servers setup. In another location I have an old Asus AC56U, also with two OpenVPN servers and an OpenVPN client that connects to the main home. Those have been connected since the beginning of February. With my phone, or one of my laptops, or with my Mango or Beryl, I can make an openVPN connection to either one of them and have access to both networks. I havenāt had a problem with OpenVPN mix and match with different brands.
These connections are very stable, so I have only once had to reboot one of the routers, and that has been because the modem had to be rebooted. But then the routers reconnect to each other.
My feeling is you want a fairly powerful device as your main home router, because you are using it for tons of stuff. How powerful depends significantly on how fast your internet connection is up/down. In your case you already have a Linksys setup, so I would first see if you can get an OpenVPN server running with it.
Yes, Iām after a stable and reliable home server that I can count on when Iām away. The experience with mixing different router brands is really helpful, exactly what Iām after!! You are AWESOME!!! Iāll look into an ASUS-Opal setup by June and let you know if I run into issues (my Linksys was expensive but itās just a pretty looking router that doesnāt do much. I wish I knew about the wonderful world of VPN routers before I bought my Linksysās). Will likely just install a new ASUS as my main (and only) router + Open VPN server.
