Has anyone forwarded a local nextcloud/homeassistant server through one before? I’m trying to leave the Spectrum monopoly with T-Mobile 5G Home Internet, which I’ve found to be incredibly fast for $50/mo at 300mbps down/100mbps up with 27ms ping. (Spectrum’s slowest plan is $70/mo with 200mbps down/10 up on a good day)
Unfortunately, T-Mobile’s connection behaves like a cellular network. It doesn’t allow externally initiated IPV6 global link connections, and IPV4 is double NAT. Therefore traditional DDNS and even IPV6 hosting won’t work. Most VPNs can add a static IP for ~$2/mo, but I’m wondering how bad the latency will be going through their server and the cell tower. Has anyone tried using one before?
I really don’t want to support Spectrum and their IPV4 only, expensive, and unreliable service. T-Mobile technical support has been incredible and understood everything I’ve asked, compared to Spectrum where the representative didn’t even know what IPV6 was when I asked why we didn’t have it.
EDIT: I have successfully configured nextcloud by using a VPS with PageKite Server installed on it. ZeroTier worked for access as if both machines were on the network, but always caused SSL failure when configured with NextCloud for unknown reasons. Certbot worked without issue when using the VPS as a PageKite server. I think zlib compression slows things down a bit, but any degree of working is better than none (700kBps uploads/downloads despite both VPS and local server having symmetric 100mbps or better connection).
You can certainly do ZeroTier, WireGuard, or use Cloudflare Argo Tunnel.
All will accomplish what you are searching for. it’s just a matter of setting them up the way you want.
Additionally, if you look through past posts on this sub, you’ll find posts detailing exactly what you’re looking for, with each of the methods listed above.
I think this is a really good idea. Unlike ZeroTier it’s available as a website on any internet-connected device which is what I want.
If I didn’t have the lifetime VPN subscription this would be the best solution, but if the $2/mo static IP addon ends up being too slow I’ll definitely try a VPS. As a bonus it would allow me to move my personal projects off of HelioHost which would definitely help reliability.
I’ve never heard of either of these before actually! I’m struggling to understand how Zerotier is free. It’s essentially routing my physical network and all devices on it through a virtual one connected to the internet by their servers correct? Hence bypassing the ISP imposed restrictions.
How is that free? Wouldn’t it require substantial bandwidth on their end?
That’s $2 on top of the VPN cost. I’m specifically interested in Windscribe, as I purchased a lifetime VPN subscription when they launched. Static IP costs $2/mo on top of base subscription.
When I last used VyprVPN (GoldenFrog), all connections were given indvidual IPs (not shared with x number of other users), if one turned off the ‘firewall’ in the control panel, incoming connections worked.
A couple years ago I started to make a database of the various VPN providers that allowed incoming connections (and ones that offered static IPs)… Not very many do and $2/month was definitely the bottom end of the pricing…
I tried a few providers years back to get around CGNAT…
It depends what your use-case is… Cloudflare tunnel was made for this and is free…
So I’ve read up on and installed ZeroTier. It’s working as explained in the documentation, but that requires all devices to be connected to the ZeroTier network rather than just any device on an open port on the internet (password protected of course). Unfortunately, this has some pretty big limitations. For my phone, that means I need to choose between Blokada or ZeroTier since both are configured as VPN. Similarly I can’t just share a link where a colleague can send a large file directly to my local network since their device would first need to be authorized and added to the network first.
Is this understanding correct? If so I’ll probably need to just try the VPN static IP add-on option. Luckily at $24/year it’s not a huge waste of money if it doesn’t work.
EDIT: It turns out Windscribe Pro has unlimited 7 day trials of the port forwarding available with static IP purchase, so I was able to test and confirm that static IP works to host the website. This way, it is accessible by any device on the internet. VPS would also be a good solution, but even the cheapest ones are slightly more than the $2/mo to just use Windscribe, so unless their servers get slow in the future I’ll stick with the cheaper option.