Push notifications when connected through VPN

[doodles]

Hi guys,

I just setup openvpn running on an rpi for tunneling into my home network. Previously, I had a port forwarded directly to BI server running on a win machine, but I'm now thinking of just relaying all traffic including BI access through the vpn when remotely viewing.

Only issue is the nice push notifications that BI sends if I remove the direct port forwarding to the BI server.

One option, would be to have vpn connected the instant I disconnect from home wifi so I'm on my network 24/7. Not sure if this is practical or not.

Another option, would be to script the alerts through a different push service, but those don't take you direct the BI app when selected so not very appealing.

What do you guys do?

 

[doodles]

@nayr @fenderman you guys have some pretty nice setups, thoughts?

 

[nayr]

an always connected VPN is fine, if you can get it to work.. Ive been unable to get that functionality of Android to work correctly.

i use pushover for all my generic notifications.

 

[fenderman]

@nayr @fenderman you guys have some pretty nice setups, thoughts?

Have you tested the push notification? outbound notifications should work without port forwarding.

 

[doodles]

an always connected VPN is fine, if you can get it to work.. Ive been unable to get that functionality of Android to work correctly.

i use pushover for all my generic notifications.

I was thinking of going always connected, but does it really warrant all the mobile data you'll eat up? Won't the mobile vpn client constantly be sending "keep alive" message to sustain the connection while on 4G? If you're on some other random wifi hotspot, no problem being enabled but on 4G your bill will rise like no tomorrow.

Have you tested the push notification? outbound notifications should work without port forwarding.

Weird, I tested it earlier today and it refused to work, but you're right it does work without forwarding now that I test it again. How does it manage to know what device to send pushes to if the BI client app isn't connected? Thanks

 

[nayr]

most always on VPN connections are more of a dial on demand, than always on.. if the connection breaks it will remain broken until something needs to send data, then it'll quickly and transparently re-establish the connection.. worse you'll notice is a bit of lag when its rebuilding the VPN tunnel when you go to use it.. the overhead of vpn is pretty minimal, but if your already pushing your data limits then you might not want anything extra all in the way of overhead.

either way, if you have a VPN service setup you should ALWAYS use it when on an untrusted network such as any and all wireless networks you dont operate.. turn on VPN when your connected to HotSpots to prevent people from snooping your traffic right out of the air.