Now that we have a couple of services up and running for our home lab, it is time we start setting up everything so that we can access our services from outside of the local area network. This will enable us to access some apps and services when we are not at home, which can be a great gain for our setup. We have two options. The first is setting up an external address to get or home network and then use one of our services to redirect traffic. The second is setting up a VPN server on our home network so that we can access our entire network as if we are connected to it, even when we are not. Today we will look at the first option as it is a lot easier and quicker to set up. We also have everything ready to go for the setup.
We will need to access our home router, so please check how to access the settings of your router. This normally involves going to a web address, normally something like http://10.0.0.1, http://192.168.0.1 or http://192.168.1.1 . Most modern routers also have some sort of smartphone app connected to it where one can set up all the settings. We are going to use our TP-Link Deco BE65 Mesh Network setup at home to set up the forwarding.
Step 1: Set up External DNS
If you have not had a look at our Dynamic DNS article, let’s refresh what a Dynamic DNS is. Dynamic DNS (DDNS) is a service that automatically updates the IP address associated with a domain name when a device’s public IP changes. This is especially useful for users with internet connections that have dynamic IPs, meaning their IP address can change periodically. With DDNS, you can maintain a consistent hostname (e.g., myhome.ddns.net) that always points to your current IP, making it easier to remotely access devices like security cameras, home servers, or VPNs without needing to check and update the IP manually.
From your router’s firmware we are looking for two things. Firstly the setup of a Dynamic DNS (DynDNS, DDNS) setting. This can be supplier specific, or use a general service like dyndns.org. Set up a name you can remember and enter it in the relevant section.
DynDNS set up with your name. We are using
Step 2: Port Forwarding
Secondly, we need to port forward from an external source, to an internal source. Look for a setting like Port Forwarding, Virtual Server or DMZ. Port forwarding is a router setting that directs incoming traffic on specific ports to designated devices on your local network. A virtual server is essentially another term for port forwarding, typically used to group or simplify rules for directing traffic to internal servers. In contrast, a DMZ (DeMilitarized Zone) exposes one device to all incoming internet traffic, bypassing the router’s firewall rules for that device, which can be useful for certain applications but also poses higher security risks.
We need to forward port our port 80 (http) and port 443 (https) to a specific IP. In the example below, we are using our WordPress site‘s IP address.
Port forwarding set up on Deco
Adding a new rule for Port Forwarding
Once the setup is complete, you should be able to go to your DynDNS address, in our case techdecode.tplinkdns.com, and see the WordPress site. It might not look correct as the site was set up to be wordpress.local, but we are now accessing it with techdecode.tplinkdns.com.
Conclusion
Although this was a short article that might not seem like it accomplished much, we have now set up connectivity from outside of our home network. We will now look at getting our reserve proxy, NGINX, into the mix to have more granular control over the services and addresses we provide. This will also enable us to have other services up and running from outside the home network and even some game servers. Now we can start to focus on getting useful apps running rather than getting connections and security up and running.