There has been a lot of discussions happening about privacy and security when it comes to travel. Internet security has been a topic of discussion for years when it comes to traveling domestic and abroad. I’ve decided to finally try to make a travel setup. I had found a good tutorial done by NetworkChuck and decided to give it a shot.
I present the Pi travel router version 1. I call this version 1 because I plan to expand the concept into a bigger project later on. I did alter slightly from the tutorial based on what I had on hand.
In the tutorial, he uses a USB WiFi adaptor, I did not have one readily available, I decided to use my Netgear Nighthawk Router in its place. Doing it this way bypasses the problem that people face using USB WiFi adapters in regards to the #openwrt OS that is installed on the raspberry pi. This also allows for more Ethernet connections due to the router having lan ports available.
Using the GUI for openwrt, you will connect to the WiFi of the coffee shop, airport, hotel, or wherever you are currently. The raspberry pi’s built in WiFi attena will be your WAN connection. The connection comes in through that, then it’s filtered through the vpn configuration and then sent through the Ethernet connection to the router that is acting as the wireless access point for both wireless and additional wired connections. For the VPN, network chuck used Nordvpn (Correct me if I’m wrong here). Private internet access has a config file that works just as well.
After assembling this and configuring it to my liking, I do have a few thoughts and questions:
1. In the next version of the project, I’m going to try and build a portable travel server. I’ve seen mini pcs and a mini router that can run on USB type c. The idea will be to make the form factor small while packing performance of a server and home network.
2. After speed testing and messing around a little bit, I’m curious to know why openwrt is capped at 100mb download speed. When I make the next version, I’m thinking of implementing PFsense over openwrt.
Was it a success? I’d say absolutely.
Would I recommend doing this project? Also yes.
