Full time connection between Pfsense and Raspberry PI

xman111 · Oct 12, 2018, 7:58 PM

Hey guys, looking for a way to connect my house and my parents house with a VPN. I don't really want to run another pfsense box at their house. I have a Raspberry PI that i wanted to hook up at their house, and I have pfsense with a working Openvpn server at my house. What is the best way to keep them both connected so I can backup files to their house without messing with or routing their internet through the VPN? any help would be much appreciated.

stephenw10 · Oct 14, 2018, 5:35 PM

Configure an OpenVPN client on the RPi and put it behind the remote router.
Connect to it via SSH or however you need to. If you are routing traffic across the VPN to the remote subnet it will need to NAT'd leaving the RPi to allow the remote devices to reply.

Steve

xman111 · Oct 15, 2018, 4:24 AM

thanks a lot stephen. is there a better way to connect between the two houses? i will be backing up my unraid server at my house to my freenas server at my parents house. would like to be able to browse my freenas server from my house, transfer files, etc. Also, how would i be able to choose what traffic goes out the internet (my parents computer) or talks to each other (my freenas). everything on their networks is on one subnet, pretty much those 2 devices and a unifi AP.

NogBadTheBad · Oct 15, 2018, 10:03 AM

@xman111 said in Full time connection between Pfsense and Raspberry PI:

freenas server

What device is doing their routing ?

Is the Raspberry PI sat on their LAN ?

stephenw10 · Oct 15, 2018, 12:27 PM

I've not tried it but I imagine you could setup the OpenVPN client on the FreeNAS box itself and avoid any routing issues.

Just use the tunnel IP of the FreeNAS box to connect to it from your network.

Steve

johnpoz · Oct 15, 2018, 12:32 PM

What router do they have? Does it support any vpn technology? If so just create s2s between your sites and you will be able to get to any device on their network. This would be the optimal way to do what your wanting to do.

But if all you want is access to files on your freenas - then sure just have your freenas vpn to your pfsense box.

xman111 · Oct 15, 2018, 4:53 PM

thanks for the reply guys. at their house, they just have an Asus router that does PPTP vpn. I just bought the pi to experiment with, don't have to use it for the VPN, it was just an option. I am working on rsync with ssh between the servers now.

johnpoz · Oct 15, 2018, 2:50 PM

@xman111 said in Full time connection between Pfsense and Raspberry PI:

router that does PPTP vpn

So a NO then - since that is not a viable solution and hasn't been secure for like 5 years.

xman111 · Oct 15, 2018, 2:52 PM

ya, exactly John, a big no.

johnpoz · Oct 15, 2018, 2:53 PM

You can run a vpn endpoint on the inside of their network for a site to site bit is more complex and not as robust and leads to its own sort of issues - hairpinning and asymmetrical being 2 big ones.

xman111 · Oct 15, 2018, 2:58 PM

ya i can barely get ssh rsync going between the two servers :)

xman111 · Oct 16, 2018, 10:29 PM

If I already have pfsense running as an openvpn server, would it make more sense to get the Freenas box or Raspberry PI to run as a client? can packets travel either way, ie. it wouldn't matter if it is the client or the server?

stephenw10 · Oct 16, 2018, 11:28 PM

It shouldn't matter for a site to site tunnel. So, yes, setup the FreeNAS as a client and give it a try.

Steve

xman111 · Oct 16, 2018, 11:34 PM

thanks man.