If you run any type of home server, then you’ve likely needed to access it when away from home. I know I have. That’s where running a VPN at home comes in, and here’s how I do just that.
A VPN Setup Is Your Best Choice
The most secure way to access your home server when you’re not at home is through a VPN. A VPN is a virtual private network, and creates a “tunnel” of sorts between the network you’re on and your network at home.
When you VPN into your home network, you’ll be able to browse services as if you’re on a computer at home. A VPN will allow you to navigate to a local IP such as 192.168.1.83 and access your home server natively.
A VPN also allows you to browse the internet as if you’re at home. If you have content blockers set up on your home network, or simply are in another country and want to access your home country’s internet, then a VPN can deliver that functionality.
Why I Use Unifi’s Teleport App
While there are a number of ways to VPN into your home network, I prefer using Unifi’s Teleport setup personally. This is mostly because I have a Unifi network stack at home already, and it’s just a simple click-and-go method of tunneling back into my home network.
With Unifi Teleport, there’s no setup required. Simply log into Unifi’s WiFiman app (available for iPhone, plus Android and desktop), click the Teleport button in the bottom right, then toggle it on. You’re now connected to your home network with a few simple clicks.
How to Get a VPN for Your Home Network
While Unifi’s native WiFiman and Teleport options might be the simplest solution, you may not have a Unifi network already. In that case, there are other options out there.
My go-to solution is to use Wg Server for Windows, which is a third-party client that handles all the complicated Wireguard commands for you through a handy GUI.
Once installed, WS4W, as it’s also called, will walk you through step-by-step on how to configure Wireguard to access your network remotely.
Start by installing Wireguard itself, which can be done through the handy button in the GUI.
Then, you’ll configure the server settings. Here, you’ll click a few buttons along the right side of the interface. Specifically, the Detect Public IP Address button, and then the Generate buttons for both the public and private keys.
From there, dive into configuring your client.
Here, give your client a name—I call my clients by the device name, like Patrick’s iPhone 15 Pro—and then start doing the rest of the setup. I let the server generate my address and allowed IPs. For DNS, you can leave it as-is or input your own if you want to use your self-hosted Pi-Hole, for instance.
Let it generate the private, public, and pre-shared keys. Then, at the top of the screen, click Generate QR Code. Scan this QR code with the Wireguard app on your iPhone and it’ll configure the server settings automatically for you. Save the client configuration and head to the next step.
Once you have your client configured, be sure to install the tunnel service, make the network private, and then enable NAT if your computer supports it. Most modern systems will.
At this point, there’s one final thing to do: port forwarding. You need to take the port that you used in the server configuration and point the port to your computer. If you don’t do this, the VPN won’t work.
Once you have everything set up and port forwarding configured, then you’re ready to connect to the VPN and access your home network from your iPhone!
While the above is how you set up Wireguard on Windows to access your home servers, Wireguard can also run on Linux and macOS. The installation instructions for those operating systems are available via the Wireguard website and are a bit more straightforward than on Windows. Be ready to use the command line to get it running on those, though.
Also, many routers in addition to Unifi support native VPN functions. AMPLIFI’s Alien utilizes a similar teleport feature to Unifi, and even more modern Wi-Fi routers from ASUS and others are starting to include the function too. Instructions on how to set these VPNs up will depend on the specific router, so be sure to check if yours offers the functionality.
Asus RT-BE96U
The ASUS RT-BE96U comes with VPN support, and it’s also ludicrously fast, allows 10Gbps wired connections, and offers superb coverage.
I’m preparing to go on a trip for nearly a week, and I have three different ways to VPN into my own home network. Of course, I have Unifi Teleport, but I also have Wireguard running on the Unifi router, as well as Wireguard running on my desktop. I have no shortage of methods to VPN into my network, and you shouldn’t either.
