SMART SDR LAN remote working well over PPTP VPN

How do you do this?
I have ATT Uverse 6 Mb/s service at home and Uverse 12 Mb/s service at my office.
I have been doing computers since the late 70's but the finer points of VPN have eluded me so far because of lack of experience and tutoring.

Can you talk me (us) through it?

Thanks

Ken - NM9P

Ken,

Do you "remote-in" to your office workstation from home? If so, then what you want to do is the same thing, but in the opposite direction. You'll need a home router capable of hosting the VPN.

Chis, I think this was your response to me.

I understand what you are doing with the VPN. What I meant to ask is whether your home and office traffic travel over a long-haul backbone network between two ISPs. As I said, my home and office use the same ISP, therefore any traffic between the two never leaves the fiber-ring that encircles my city. Thus, a VPN between the two is not much different than a direct connection on my local LAN.

Ken, 

I now have SmartSDR Remote working FB via WAN using PPTP VPN. 

I was having issues with my router (Buffalo with DD-WRT) passing UDP broadcast packets, so I flashed the router to a new release of DD-WRT. Set up a PPTP VPN through DD-WRT's interface, and it works great. 

I'd be happy to guide you through this procedure if you'd like. DD-WRT is really amazing, and can turn a $30 router into a $400 router. 

Howard, 

Gladly. 



First, familiarize yourself with dd-wrt. The scope of flashing a router with this custom firmware is too broad to to cover here, and there is plenty of terrific how to guides and supporting documentation on their website. Way better than what I could do. dd-wrt is custom firmware that allows your router to typically do way more than with the manufacturer's firmware, and many many routers are supported. My router is a cheap $60 Buffalo router. 

As you can see, I've enabled the PPTP Server, as well as enabled Broadcast support and MPPE Encryption (worthless, I know, but better than nothing). 

I provide google's DNS servers in DNS1 and DNS1, and add my router's IP to WINS1. It's worth double checking your router's IP address if you're not sure. There are other common IP router addresses, like 192.168.0.1, or 10.0.0.1. Double check to be sure. 

Server IP - you want this to be an IP address that isn't in use on the network. I don't start my DHCP until 1.10, so I have 8 static IP's to work with (192.168.1.2-9). I chose 192.168.1.3 (192.168.1.2 is already statically assigned to a server on my network). 

Set a range of IP addresses to be assigned to VPN connections, as seen in "Client IP(s)." You would want this to be outside of your DHCP pool for sure. My DHCP starts at 192.168.1.10, and assigns up to 50 addresses. I chose 192.168.1.80-85 as it's well outside of where dynamic IP addresses are assigned. 

The number of clients is arbitrary, but you cannot have more "Max Associated Clients" than you have "Client IP(s)" assigned. 

Chap Secrets follow a specific format: username <space> * <space> password <space> *

Eg:
admin * password *

This is the username and password you would use when setting up your VPN client on your remote computer. 

Once this is set, click Apply Settings, then head on over to Administration, scroll down, and reboot the router. You should be good to go. 

Follow this tutorial for setting up a VPN connection on your remote computer:

https://www.hideipvpn.com/2009/09/howto-windows-7-pptp-vpn-setup-tutorial/

Substitute the username and password with the one you created in your PPTP VPN server. 

Also worth noting is that for "Internet Address" during setup, you would enter your WAN IP address or DDNS address. A DDNS service is worth the money in this instance, especially if your WAN IP is dynamic. 

If all's well that end's well, you should be able to connect to your VPN, start SSDR, and have your Flex show up, ready for action!

***Note that PPTP is not a secure solution, and it's encryption is compromised. While Microsoft has patched it's known issues, it is widely accepted that PPTP is compromised. OpenVPN provides a bridge solution that is far more secure, but is also far more complicated to set up. Use at your own risk. 

Excellent info. What effect does hiding the waterfall have? And when hidden, does the rate have any effect, I.e. Does it still run in the background?

This is an excellent thread! Kudos to the Flex team for making it happen and choosing the high fidelity and robust Opus audio codec.

I would agree that a DD-WRT based router on the "Flex host" (radio) side is a very good, cost effective way to go. I have used multiple Cisco/Linksys E3000 and E4200 routers flashed with DD-WRT firmware for over six years now with great results. I have had them configured as both PPTP servers and a OpenVPN point to point VPN (you can do both at the same time by the way) between my primary and second home.  PPTP is reasonably secure for home use if implemented correctly (force maximum encryption and use a long password - the password is linked to the how secure the encryption is) and is very simple to setup and works with the native Windows, Mac and IOS software clients. OpenVPN requires more networking and technical know-how but is a more secure and open standard. The OpenVPN site to site tunnel is robust and can be configured as a bridge (TAP mode) or as a routed connection (TUN mode).

For those who are interested in getting started in DD-WRT here are some great links:

How to install and setup DD-WRT (this is an excellent site):
http://www.stevejenkins.com/blog/2013/01/my-cisco-linksys-e4200-dd-wrt-settings-for-max-speed/

How to setup a PPTP server on DD-WRT:
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/PPTP_Server_Configuration

How to setup a OpenVPN Site to Site VPN on DD-WRT (easiest instructions - especially on how to generate needed encryption keys):
http://wadihzaatar.com/?p=11

Carmine
W1EQX