Can only connect localy to HA

[Mindraid (Hans Målefors)]

Hi guys, new to this!
I can connect to HA with this: homeassistant.local

My HA setup:
Using a virtual Box in Windows 11: Windows - Home Assistant (home-assistant.io)
I have a Bitdefender Firewall in Windows and a Torguard VPN software running in Windows. My PC is then connected to a HW Firewall via Ethernet and then out to the ISP.
I have opened the port 8123 in Torguard setup and if I use the port with any program , I can check if the port is open with an online port checker web interface and that works. So if I stop the program that is using the port, the port checker fails. So for me to use the port 8123 works through the VPN tunnel.

I have tried both the ISP and then the VPN provided IP with the HA port 8123 but I do not reach the HA settings page in my browser. Any suggestions?

In the future: I Would love to connect to my HA trough Google to be able to edit HA trough the Cloud. (Is there a guide?)

Thanks for all your help!

[Mindraid (Hans Målefors)]

I don’t think the port 8123 is “open” by HA…or is it?
I found this on wiki, good explanation:
The terms “open” and “closed” can sometimes be misleading, though; it blurs the distinction between a given port being reachable (unfiltered) and whether there is an application actually listening on that port. Technically, a given port being “open” (in this context, reachable) is not enough for a communication channel to be established. There needs to be an application (service) listening on that port, accepting the incoming packets and processing them. If there is no application listening on a port, incoming packets to that port will simply be rejected by the computer’s operating system.

[francisp (Francis)]

@Mindraid

I Would love to connect to my HA trough Google to be able to edit HA trough the Cloud

Try Nabu Casa

[Mindraid (Hans Målefors)]

@francisp

Nabu Casa

But that is a paid service, right? I would love to try without it first.
Thanks for your reply

[francisp (Francis)]

Then you could use some of these:

HOWTO: Secure Cloudflare Tunnels remote access

Remote access to HASS is required to setup Google Assistant and Alexa voice control, but just turning it on with Cloudflare Tunnels exposes your HASS to the internet similarly to a simple port forward except it doesn’t expose your IP address. Attackers can still directly hit your install if they know the URL. This approach removes most of that risk by only allowing access from Google Assistant’s IP ranges. Note this is more secure than Nabu Casa cloud as they don’t restrict source IPs at the ti…

Reverse proxy using NGINX

This guide has been migrated from our website and might be outdated. Feel free to edit this guide to update it, and to remove this message after that. Using NGINX as a proxy for Home Assistant allows you to serve Home Assistant securely over standard ports. This configuration file and instructions will walk you through setting up Home Assistant over a secure connection. 1. Get a domain name forwarded to your IP Chances are, you have a dynamic IP address (your ISP changes your address…

How to Configure Remote Access with Let's Encrypt

I tried to get remote access working and found a lot of the guides to either be a bit outdated, or not applicable to me. Most examples use Duck DNS. This is because you’re going to want to use HTTPS, which means you need a SSL certificate, which means you need a domain to certify. That’s what Duck DNS will do for you; it provides you with a domain that you can certify. Of course, you also need this domain so that you have a reliable address to connect to since you likely have a dynamic (changing…

[Mindraid (Hans Målefors)]

I found one issue: My box did not have the same net as Windows, so they did not talk to each other. The solution was to configure an external mac in Hyper-V, then assign a IP to that mac in router, then restart it all. Now they are in the same IP-sphere. Can now reach the HA from within my LAN:)
Next step will be to check if I can find a secure solution to reach my HA from outside my LAN.