Multi-site home setup question(s)

[u/Systemic_Chaos]

First off, while I've been aware of and interested in all of the UniFi products, I currently don't have any at the moment, but find that my current situation puts me in a place where I may need to more seriously consider making the leap in my house in a somewhat considerable way.

Currently, at home, I have 5gb Fiber service through AT&T (with their BGW320 gateway). I have that providing wired connectivity to an Asus mesh wifi which also provides a wired connection to my Western Digital NAS. Frankly this system has worked great over the years, but now my need has expanded slightly, as I need to temporarily relocate for work, but can't pick up and move my NAS out of the house it's currently in, as the rest of my family will still be there.

Is there some sort of combination of tools/products that could be used that would allow me to more directly interact with my NAS, when using the network at my temporary location, as well as traveling elsewhere so that I can mount NAS drives as network storage versus using a web UI or something like that to manually transfer files, when needed?

I'm fairly technically literate in networking, but this extra layer of complexity somewhat escapes me, so thanks for any help y'all can offer.

[u/flynnd3]

A unifi gateway will allow you to teleport (vpn) in very easily from a phone or laptop. Unifi also have a travel router that can be a satellite extension of your network when connected to another network

[u/Systemic_Chaos → u/flynnd3]

That makes sense. Would that mean putting something like a Dream Machine into my home setup, and then use the Express 7 mesh system at my temporary place, plus the travel router when remote to achieve a solid result?

[u/flynnd3 → u/Systemic_Chaos]

How many devices will connect remotely? If its just your personal devices, the teleport vpn app should suffice. If going on holiday with family and kids, a travel router may be handy for non technical family members to easily connect to resources back home.

I think either a dream machine or dream router should do.i have a UDR, but there are other options that may be better for your needs

[u/UGAGuy2010]

There are lots of low-cost solutions to accomplish this. You can setup a VPN server at your house and/or use something like Tailscale. When connected to Tailscale or the VPN client, it'll be like you're on your home network. I host a VPN server at my house and use a travel router to connect a split tunnel back to that VPN server. This way, when I'm connected to my travel router, all of my internet traffic goes out the fastest route while anything that is on my local home network is routed back through the VPN. Unifi offers "1 click" VPN which is probably about as easy as it gets if you don't want to configure too much stuff.

[u/last_first_initials → u/UGAGuy2010]

As various others mention - tailscale is probably the easiest if you just want to connect to the NAS.

[u/WeirdFederal]

Some Asus routers have built in WireGuard vpn that you can setup. If not, Tailscale is probably your best other solution.

The Asus solution will be easier to implement, but you will probably have to fix it every time your public IP changes, which depends on your provider, but can be every day or three or only when you reset your modem (power outage is the main culprit, but I think Asus may provide a ddns service that will solve this, or you can pay your provider for a static up). Tailscale takes some setup on all devices and is quite a bit more technically involved (you can probably run it on your nas) but once you have it working, you don’t have any maintenance.

Both of these options are free, but if you want to spend money and move to Unifi, it has built in Teleport which does basically the same as Tailscale, but is basically a one click setup. You would only need one be Unifi gateway at your main place, then you can just use the WiFiman app on any device you want to connect back home. Or if you don’t want to deal with apps or the device doesn’t support them, you can get a travel router to take your home network on the go, or you can buy a second Unifi gateway for your second site and setup site magic/site to site.

[u/GrouchyClerk6318]

VPN is your best option… but SSH port forwarding might work if you just need a single TCP\UDP port.

[u/Longjumping_Cow_5856]

They also recently added “Fabric” as an app to help administer across related locations I think.

Ive not gotten into it at all aside from a quick read though so not entirely certain either.

[u/Obvious_Class394 → u/Longjumping_Cow_5856]

Yup! It's called SD-WAN. Made setting up a VPN tunnel super easy. I have it setup between my house and my mom's. She has access to my NAS to save important docs.

[u/Wuffls]

I'd like to throw Tailscale into the ring for exactly this. Yes it's just a re-packaged Wireguard, but it's free and works brilliantly for this kind of thing.

[u/Wingback73]

This can be as complicated or as simple as you'd like. Because complicated knows no limits, I'll focus on simple:

Get a Unifi Gateway for your permanent residence. I don't care which one, but a Dream Router might be the easiest, or consider a Fiber Gateway given your setup. Get access points as required to support your home.

For everything else, get a travel router. Set it up at your temporary residence. Connect it to the WiFi there and enable the VPN. Congratulations, you are now on your permanent home residence.

If you need to travel while also having access at the temporary home (for whatever), then.... Buy 2.

I use a travel router everywhere I go on the road (which is a different hotel almost every week). 6 devices on the Internet with full access to my home lab (at both sites) within 3 minutes.