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The original was posted on /r/selfhosted by /u/anonhostpi on 2023-07-16 05:58:45.
I see that most self-hosted VPN setups are used for remote access to home labs, but what about mobile home labs?
I’ve had several thoughts for making a lab on the go, but I think I will run into the same wall with any of these setups.
- Adding a home lab to my Field Service van
- Adding a home lab to my Dad’s camper
- Doing a van conversion that adds a home lab
- Adding a homelab to a boat/yacht for living on the water
- Smaller setups: Homelab-in-a-backpack, cars with computing equipment (similar to modern EMS and police vehicles), etc.
But I think all setups have the same limitation: Almost all cellular networks have large amounts of NAT. I was thinking I could make use of a DDNS service, but I am not entirely sure that would work. Even if I got a nice cellular modem, I still think that VPN hosting may not work well due to all of the NAT.
I could try satellite solutions, but that wouldn’t work for my smaller scale ideas.
Does anyone have any ideas or know of any mobile solutions that work? I am interested in a solution that is purely mobile (no dependency on a home network).
I am running a remote security camera based in a RPI3 using an 4G HAT (SIM7600X). I can confirm I cannot reach the ports directly (most likely to NAT).
So outgoing connections are no problem at least. I sometimes setup a temporary reverse SSH Tunnel (to be able to configure the camera using an UI). I personally used a VM hosted in a cloud for that (using nginx in between to be able to use https), but you might also use a self hosted machine for that (DDNS as you already).
To start the SSH tunnel ondemand I was using a telegram bot (+ telegramcli), this might not be suitable for everything and is by far not the best or secure solution, but for my usecase it was a good fit.
So a reverse SSH tunnel might be a solution for you?
Cheers!