Ages ago, I started my Appleause.com blog mostly with the goal of posting research items that I couldn’t figure out by web searches. I figure, maybe someone else will be searching for the same thing one day and run in to my efforts and together we can figure it out.

This post is for that reason, so feel free to skip it. I have the solution, but it will not be in this post since I do not have the details with me at the moment.

Synology DS1522 NAS

The Synology NAS devices can install software, and support three types of VPNs. Choosing which one to use is a rabbit hole, but OpenVPN seems pretty common and cross platform.

OpenVPN can be enabled on the NAS, but if it is inside a network, you cannot access it. Some routers are directly supported by the NAS and it can open up holes in the router’s firewall (UPnP) and, I suppose, it just magically works. (We should really all turn that feature off, because if something naughty gets inside your network, it could potentially do the same, opening up your private network to the outside world.)

If you NAS is behind a cable modem, DSL modem, etc. you may have to manually open up ports and forward them to the IP address of your NAS.

Once that is done, a profile can be installed on a PC, Mac, Linux, iPad, Android, etc. and then you can run a VPN app and connect to your NAS. It can selectively allow access to other things inside your home network.

I plan to document some simple steps to make this happen, and save hours of watching YouTube videos and reading knowledge base articles.

But for now, I wanted to post this to get something in the search engines. In my case, I’ll be mentioning a specific CenturyLink DSL modem.

To be continued…