# VPN gateway for home LAN

**URL:** <https://discourse.homelabbrisbane.com.au/t/vpn-gateway-for-home-lan/557>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [October 13, 2026, 10:01am UTC](https://discourse.homelabbrisbane.com.au/t/vpn-gateway-for-home-lan/557 "2026-10-13T10:01:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![GregY](https://discourse.homelabbrisbane.com.au/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/ec9cab/32.png) [@GregY](https://discourse.homelabbrisbane.com.au/u/GregY)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2026, 10:01am UTC](https://discourse.homelabbrisbane.com.au/t/vpn-gateway-for-home-lan/557/1 "2026-10-13T10:01:48Z")

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i have a ubiquiti system at home, and it doesnt play well with “zerotier” VPN..  
(that i use on boat router, IPADS, anrdoid phone et al)

I want to expose my home LAN to zerotier - rather than individual devices (at present)

the ubiquit router has no native (or easily hackable) spport for zerotier.

Ive got a rockchip nanoPi R3S (had t lying around from a defunct project)  
& its (alledgedl) possible to use OpenWRT in a suitably configured manner  
as a vpn gateway on the LAN..

unfortunately AI help has mangled the process & config, to the point after 24hrs Ive given up, reflashed the sdcard/emcc on nanopi - and now starting again - without AI trying to be over clever… wth a continual array of command line (i dont unerdtand) commands.

Question: anyone done anything similar?  
im locked in to using zerotier (im a long term “free” user - with a grandfathered good set of features, along wth a working router on the boat that exposes all devices  
.. so movg to tailscale and various others. not an option.

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**Author:** ![Belfry](https://discourse.homelabbrisbane.com.au/user_avatar/discourse.homelabbrisbane.com.au/belfry/32/501_2.png) [@Belfry](https://discourse.homelabbrisbane.com.au/u/Belfry)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2026, 10:21am UTC](https://discourse.homelabbrisbane.com.au/t/vpn-gateway-for-home-lan/557/2 "2026-10-13T10:21:11Z")

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I haven’t used ZeroTier in a couple of years, but [DietPi](https://dietpi.com/#download) has a build for the NanoPi R3S and a “ready to run” package for ZeroTier.

Should be a case of:

- Flash the SD card (or eMMC) using Balena Etcher or similar
- Follow the bouncing ball for the DietPi setup (follow the first boot wizard process)
- `dietpi-software` to install ZeroTier (assuming the installer doesn’t prompt you for packages - I think it does, from memory)
- `sudo zerotier-cli join <yournetwork>` and auth from the ZeroTier website (if you’ve got that enabled)

That’s probably the easiest way to get going, but something like [Armbian](https://armbian.com) would almost certainly have an R3S build ready to go, and ZeroTier packages to install too.

Hope that helps!

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**Author:** ![GregY](https://discourse.homelabbrisbane.com.au/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/ec9cab/32.png) [@GregY](https://discourse.homelabbrisbane.com.au/u/GregY)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2026, 10:53am UTC](https://discourse.homelabbrisbane.com.au/t/vpn-gateway-for-home-lan/557/3 "2026-10-13T10:53:13Z")

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thanks will have a look ..  
ive done lenty of zerotier clients on rpi or similar,  
but this has to play nice inside the ubiquiti lan - where it remains THE router,  
and the nanopi (and ubiquiti) is configured to allow nanopi it to be a vpn gateway.  
so there are routes and firewall configs needed in nanopi,  
along with some static routes in ubiquiti ..

life was so much easier when we didnt need firewalls!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GregY](https://discourse.homelabbrisbane.com.au/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/ec9cab/32.png) [@GregY](https://discourse.homelabbrisbane.com.au/u/GregY)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2026, 1:14am UTC](https://discourse.homelabbrisbane.com.au/t/vpn-gateway-for-home-lan/557/4 "2026-10-14T01:14:47Z")

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managed to get it setup.  
after i smcked AI and told it not to be overly clever ..  
and found a simple linux distro . then setup some routing tables etc.  
all now working..  
very happy.  
simplifies access to “both” of my networks (home and boat) regardless of if im inside either,  
or outside … NICE!