In another post@jfb you mention you carry a travel router and Pi Zero W running Pi-hole. This provides a convenient way to have everyone travelling on the same local network and means that their devices are already set up to connect to it no matter where they travel.
This has some advantages – no need to configure VPN clients on different devices, iOS, Android, Windows, etc, and no need to expose and maintain any VPN services back home.
Then it's just a case of putting the travel router online. I found an earlier post by you @jfb where you mention the models and a bit more info.
Sounds like a really useful approach so I want to make one. Do you have any more info that might be useful, any pitfalls, perhaps shortcomings of the router model, etc? Any ideas on how you might tweak it if you could redo it? Are you still using the same model router?
I was looking at a "MiFi" hotspot a few weeks ago, it's a 4G-enabled mobile hotspot with a data plan. But I already have unlimited data via a hotspot on my phone, and I like the idea of being able to also use this with a hotel or guest wifi.
I bought the inexpensive TP-Link AC750 (TL-WR902AC). It works fine for my needs.
Small, runs on USB power, has an ethernet port if needed, can extend either ethernet or WiFi networks, etc.
In the car, it connects to WiFi via a personal hotspot on a phone. In a hotel or friends house, I just hook onto their wireless network. Some hotels are going to ethernet connections, and I've used those as well.
I don't run custom firmware; just whatever TP-Link offers as latest.
The router is $40 US on Amazon.
This device runs a completely separate IP range than my home network. The Pi is set on a static IP on that range (so it can't accidentally join my home network).
I have DHCP client reservations for all the devices that travel with me/us, and this keeps the Pi-hole logs consistent over trips.
Thankyou @jfb, that's a useful little device to take around. I noticed it only has one ethernet port so presumably it's always a choice of using that to connect to the network or connect an ethernet-only device to the router. But that's quite a specific case – I think all my devices are wifi-enabled and even if they weren't, my phone hotspot eliminates the need to use that port for the network connection, freeing it up for any ethernet-only device.
To be clear though, does it let you connect to a wifi network while simultaneously connecting wifi clients to it, so it's all done on wifi? And can they be on different bands (2.4GHz and 5Ghz simultaneously)?
I like the idea of the Pi Zero W for Pi-hole, and this could even be extended to support Tor or other services, so the router's job stays as just that and the Pi runs the extra travel features needed. We're all supposed to be seeing Pi's returning to the shops soon, with things getting back to normal later next year.
Another little travel router that crops up is this Beryl (GL-MT1300). It's got two LAN ports and extra services, but it's twice the price on Amazon and moves various services into it, so some more research needed to see if it's worth the extra.
I've got this down as a little project for the new year. Has anyone else reading this made a similar travel router setup?
How are you able to be sure that your client subnet doesn't have the same addressing as the 'WAN' subnet? Eg you're using say 192.168.1.0/24 for your reservations and it turns out that a hotel wifi, that you're trying to connect to, happens to be using this same subnet?
I guess you can choose a "less likely" subnet inside in 192.168.0.0/16 or 10.0.0.0/8. Or does it already intelligently route between the LAN and WAN side with such a scenario explicitly catered for, since it is a travel router and might reasonably be expected to see this scenario?