Home Assitant with OpenVPN Cloud

I thought I would share this if anyone is interested in remote access with VPN.
I recently signed up to use the free OpenVPN cloud service. I used the built in configuration for a connector to connect my EdgeRouter Lite to the Open VPN network, then I was able to access my local network from my phone. I had to remove my external dns name for the companion app and just have my local IP address but all good!
Pretty easy way to set up VPN access and remove port forwarding to 8123 on my router.

Hope this will be of use to someone.

Michael

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Thanks for sharing.
I decided to go the same way (VPN via OpenVPN Cloud) and I am happy I am not alone. :slight_smile:

Even if it is quite easy to set up, I am a little bit confused on some choices (and the final configuration) : did you set up your server as a HOST or did you create a NETWORK ?
I went for a HOST (installed the connector on my ubuntu laptop), set up a service with TCP protocol and port 8123.

I then installed the Android app on my smartphone, connect to my account (user)…but now I do not really know how to access Home Assistant. Should I use the connector address / 8123 ? I tried but I cannot reach Home Assistant…(maybe that is also related to the firewall on my ubuntu, which allows connections only from specific local ip adresses…but I am not sure it is just that…)

I would love to go down this route and drop the reverse proxy I have currently, but I guess that would break things like Alexa which call into my network to talk to HA. :frowning:

I set up the connector on my Ubiqiti edge lite router. There is a script that you can download which will set it up. I also setup my local LAN as a network.

With this setup I can log into the VPN and my local LAN is available including home assistant.

Indeed the options are quite confusing it does take a bit of reading guides and trying a few things.

Finally, I think it was a strange mobile browser issue.

Once I opened the port on the firewall (ufw) without ip restriction I was able to connect to Home Assistant service with the Home Assistant app on my device (once the device is connected to the OpenVPN via it dedicated app). Still, no connection from the mobile browser. :man_shrugging:

It has to be known that the free version of OpenVPN cloud allow only 3 connections, one being taken by the host. So, only 2 users being able to connect to the VPN (and so to Home Assistant from the internet).