So…in a short sentence…the title. I have a server in a remote location which also happens to be under CGNAT. I only get to visit this location once a year at best, so if anything goes off…It stays off for the rest of that year until I can go and troubleshoot.
I have a main location/home where everything works, I get a fixed IP and I can connect multiple services as desired.
I’d like to make this so I could publish internal servers such as HA or similar on this remote location, and reach them in a way easy enough that I could install the apps to non-tech users and they could just use them through a normal URL. Is this possible? I already have a PiVPN running wireguard on the main location, and I just tested an LXC container from remote location, it connects via wireguard to the main location just fine, can ping/ssh machines correctly. But I can’t reach this VPN-connected machine from the main location.
Alternatively, I’m happy to listen to alternative solutions/ideas on how to connect this remote location to the main one somehow.
You probably need the server to do relatively aggressive keepalive to keep the connection alive. You go through CGNAT, so if the server doesn’t talk over the VPN for say 30 seconds, the NAT may drop the mapping and now it’s gone. WireGuard doesn’t send any packet unless it’s actively talking to the other peer, so you need to enable keepalive so it’s sending stuff often enough the connection doesn’t drop and if it does, quickly bring it back up.
Also make sure if you don’t NAT the VPN, that everything has a route that goes back to the VPN. If 192.168.1.34 (main location) talks to 192.168.2.69 (remote location) over a VPN 192.168.3.0/24, without NAT, both ends needs to know to route it through the VPN network. Your PIVPN probably does NAT so it works one way but not the other. Traceroute from both ends should give you some insight.
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You probably need the server to do relatively aggressive keepalive to keep the connection alive. You go through CGNAT, so if the server doesn’t talk over the VPN for say 30 seconds, the NAT may drop the mapping and now it’s gone. WireGuard doesn’t send any packet unless it’s actively talking to the other peer, so you need to enable keepalive so it’s sending stuff often enough the connection doesn’t drop and if it does, quickly bring it back up.
Also make sure if you don’t NAT the VPN, that everything has a route that goes back to the VPN. If 192.168.1.34 (main location) talks to 192.168.2.69 (remote location) over a VPN 192.168.3.0/24, without NAT, both ends needs to know to route it through the VPN network. Your PIVPN probably does NAT so it works one way but not the other. Traceroute from both ends should give you some insight.
That should absolutely work otherwise.