Create your own VPN
If you’ve been following along with this column for the last few months, we’ve been running a series on various types of home servers, and the tools and techniques you need to set them up. This month we thought we’d look at an oft-overlooked but very useful type of home server: the home virtual private network (VPN) server.
What we’re talking about here is not what you might be thinking of when you hear ‘VPN’. The term VPN is most commonly associated now with commercial, subscription-based VPN services that can be used for security and anonymous access to websites. Those are VPNs run by a third party that you pay to access.
But you don’t necessarily have to. It’s entirely possible to create your own private VPN on your home network, and that’s what we’ll be discussing in this column.
Why a VPN
So the question you might reasonably ask is: why? Why would you set up your own VPN server at home?
The answer to that is actually right there in the name: it creates a virtual private network. Let’s say you’re away from home, using your laptop or Android phone. Using a VPN, you can ‘dial in’ to your home network, and then your laptop or mobile will operate and work with your other devices exactly as if it were connected to your home network.
You could, for example, access Windows File Shares or NAS devices. If you have remote access set up on a PC, or Steam or PlayStation local game streaming, then the device could access it from anywhere in the world over the internet. For all intents and purposes, the device will think and act as if it’s connected to your home network, even when you’re on the other side of the world.
It also provides some security. The device will route its internet traffic through your home internet connection. It will still use its own internet quota to connect back to your home network, but outgoing internet connections will be routed back through your home network, and any security measures you have in place on your home network will be applied.
The link, or ‘tunnel’, from the device to your home network is encrypted, and that also provides some security. If you’re using a public Wi-Fi hotspot, it will protect your connection from listeners, the exact same way that a commercial VPN service will.
Setting up a Windows 10 VPN server
Thanks to the built in VPN in Windows, setting up a server at home is actually relatively easy, with no extra software needed. Just follow these steps:
In Windows 10, go to Settings > Network & Internet.
Click on Change adapter options. This will bring up the Network Connections window.
In the Network Connections window, tap on the Alt key to bring up the drop down menus. Then select File > New incoming connection.
You’ll be asked which users of this PC will have access to this VPN, and given a list of current users. This is critical – only choose a real user (not Guest or DefaultAccount), and that user must have a good password set up. The VPN will use that user’s Windows login credentials as the username/password for the VPN, and a poor password could make your home network extremely vulnerable to attack.
You’ll be asked which protocols to allow. The default (IPv4, File and printer sharing, QoS) should suffice for most users. Click on Allow Access.
Using a VPN, you can ‘dial in’ to your home network, and then your laptop or mobile will operate and work with your other devices exactly as if it were connected to your home network.
Finally, the VPN will be enabled, and you’ll be given a computer name that you should make a note of.
You’ll see in the Network Connections window that a new ‘Incoming connections’ device has been created. You can right click on it to change the properties or delete it at any time.
And that’s it – a basic VPN server has been set up. Next, we need to set up our router to accept incoming connections.
Setting up the network
As we’ve covered this in previous months, we won’t go over all this ground again. But there are basically one to three things you need to do:
Fix the local IP address of the computer you’re using as the
VPN server. This allows port forwarding to function. We provide a full guide in the TechLife February 2020 Home Networking column.
Set up DDNS. This allows the VPN to be connected to with a fixed URL like TechLifeVPN.ddns. net. For a full guide, see TechLife January 2020’s Home
Networking column.
Set up port forwarding from the router to the VPN server. You can find a full guide in TechLife March 2020’s Privacy and Security column or at portforward.com. For the VPN, you need to forward port 1723 to the IP address you set up for the server in step 1 above.
Connecting to the server
Now that your server is up and running, it’s time to connect to it from the client devices. You should be able to connect to it from anywhere on the internet using just about any device that supports PPTP VPN connections.
If you’re trying to dial in from a Windows PC, go to Settings>Network & Internet and select VPN from the left panel. Click on the ‘+’ to add a new VPN connection, and enter the details for the connection: give it a name (this is just a local identifier and can be anything), the server’s internet IP or DDNS address, and the username and password for an authorised user. Once you’ve done that, a new VPN connection will appear in the list of available connections – click on it to connect or disconnect at any time.
On Android, it will vary a little from device to device. But generally you’ll go to Settings > Connections > More connection settings > VPN. Click on the vertical ellipsis to add a new VPN profile. Give it a name and enter the address. When it comes to the protocol, Windows VPN now actually supports a variety of connection protocols – but for simplicity you can just use PPTP. It’s not the most secure protocol, but it’s sufficient for most users, and doesn’t require any additional configuration. Once you’ve created the profile, just tap on it to activate it.
Unfortunately iOS no longer supports PPTP, making it much harder to connect. If you want to use iOS, we recommend using a third-party app (see the Other VPN software sidebar).
Once connected, you should be up and running. You should be able to access the services on your home network, and use the device exactly as if you were connected to your home network – which, from the perspective of the device, you are.