Portable VPN

[larry818 0]

Hi All,

I'm looking for a vpn device that I can mail to a client, have them pop their sim card in it or connect it to wifi, and it'll allow me to connect via ethernet to their plc, etc...

I'm thinking something like the Phoenix mGuard, but I have no experience with that and don't know if it's any good.

Anyone done this?

Thanks, Larry

[BobLfoot 301]

What you describe sounds like a good idea until you realize the amount of data that passes between a PLC and it's Programming Software on a PC or Terminal.

Now I'm not saying don't do it, but you might also consider getting an inexpensive tablet device to which you can load the programming Software and have the client connect it by USB, Serial or Ethernet to the PLC.  Then you would remote access the tablet.  In this scenario the only data passing over the WWW is your keystrokes and the graphics updates.  Much less than the handshakes and etc passing between the tablet and PLC.  Not to mention what happens when the VPN/WWW connection drops and comes back. 

Just my humble 2 cents.

[pturmel 157]

My experience is that graphics updates for remote desktop/vnc/etc are much more data that typical programming traffic.  I highly recommend using a VPN that includes (or simulates) layer 2 operations. e W O N devices have worked well for me, though I prefer to run my own.

[larry818 0]

I've considered going the TeamViewer route as a last resort, and for this upcoming service it seems I'll have to go that way.  I'm not a big fan of TeamViewer, though, do you have an alternate favorite?

Thanks!

[larry818 0]

I've found some devices that connect via Amazon AWS.  A few can connect to the 'net via RJ45, Wifi, cell, or USB (for phone tethering).  I'll buy a couple of those and see how they work out...

[mmd604 1]

On 2021-10-01 at 5:14 PM, larry818 said:

Hi All,

I'm looking for a vpn device that I can mail to a client, have them pop their sim card in it or connect it to wifi, and it'll allow me to connect via ethernet to their plc, etc...

I'm thinking something like the Phoenix mGuard, but I have no experience with that and don't know if it's any good.

Anyone done this?

Thanks, Larry

I would look into the Wireguard VPN for what you are trying to do.  I have a server setup on a VPS and all I do is send the user a config file.  They download and install wireguard and then add my config file and then mine and his computer is linked via my own wireguard private network.