Thanks I've tried openVPN before. It'd be even better if it were a docker image.
Thanks for all replies!
OpenVPN is then they way to go. Does anyone have this running on same rpi as Homebridge?
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but I am using a Raspberry PI for VPN and also HomeBridge.
Found that from a few minutes ago.. so at least one person has Homebridge and VPN on a rPi... 
Not sure where this came about but I use OpenVPN using the pivpn bash script.
You can also use the OpenVPN Server in AsusWRT Merlin firmware. It is built-in and works great. I have an Asus AC86 that gives you h/w assist for the encryption for OpenVPN. I have only minimal slowdown in my broadband speeds using it.
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Caught this thread and wanted to mention a few things…
First up, please give HousePanel by @kewashi a whirl. It's awesome. There are several ways to then connect to HousePanel remotely – either by VPN or a few other methods.
https://kewashi.github.io/HousePanel/
While I do have VPN access enabled to my home, I only use this for troubleshooting and admin type work on HE. At the moment, I use a standard Hubitat style dashboard for "friendly" remote access to turn on the lights as I am walking home from the car or check status. There is a cloud link available for every dashboard page. That link, once saved to the home screen on my iOS devices, has been enough for my remote access needs.
But to pursue remote access aka "access through the internet" using VPN seems clunky. It never would pass the WAF/SAF test either. Soon I am going to experiment with Dataplicity to see if it can deliver on the easy remote portal promise. Anyone else wants to give this a spin please report back! I think there is a developer API so perhaps someday @kewashi with the help of this community will be able to integrate it or something similar.
In the meantime, happy Hubitating!
–Richard
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I am confused on why you would use Dataplicity verses just using OpenVPN when using a Pi. The WAF shouldn't have to access your HE admin. My wife only cares about if the garage doors and exterior doors are locked. We just use the HE dashboard to control those from a visibility standpoint. And just recently we are now using HomeBridge with HomeKit on our iOS devices to control using Siri.
Dataplicity just adds another layer of potential cloud failure as you direct yourself through a cloud service and then back to your home network. If they have an issue you have no access remotely. Dataplicity is not free...it is free-mium meaning they are getting something from you either about your network topology, packet sizing, whatever. Their certs not yours so they in essence have access to your network and the visibility into your traffic to/from their service.
OpenVPN is quite simple to setup especially if you use the PiVPN Bash script I posted above. And it is FREE! It does all the hard work for you and literally takes a couple minutes to setup, Your hardest part is ensuring you can port forward your firewall to your Pi which you will have to do anyways. VPN clients for every known device (iOS, Windows, Linux, Droid, etc), fast connectivity and easy to create secure personal certs.
Give it a try!
HousePanel author here...
I’m sold on trying OpenVPN. I will give OpenVPN a try soon. I have been looking for a safer way to access HousePanel from outside the house. At present I have a version running on my public Godaddy server with the new HP password feature enabled but a hashed password is fairly weak security and public shared hosting servers are painfully slow. I have fixed home IP’s so VPN is a good solution for me.
Now... the really interesting part would be if I can build it into HousePanel directly? I have no experience with it so I am clueless but if there is an API it can probably be done. Any thoughts on this?
Ken
If you have a Linux capable pc running on your network, you can follow this tutorial, a script is included for most functionality. After install I just setup a port forward on my eero gateway and I'm able to access hubitat and other services securely.
https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/howto-setup-openvpn-server-on-ubuntu-linux-14-04-or-16-04-lts/
"build it into HousePanel directly?"
That's an awfully big bite... And for using an API, isn't it going to come from something already installed? If OpenVpN is already installed, and using it (as is) consumes under 2 seconds, you'd have to improve on their UI, via the API, pretty significantly to gain traction.
On my iOS devices it's literally two clicks. One to launch the OpenVPN client and then there's only one button.. the one next to my profile. That's it... ok, wait, now I have to gesture to go back to the App I really wanted.. which is HousePanel.
I guess there's room in there to improve. 
not a ton, but some.
Yup, that is my point. Users are lazy. Us geeks on this forum do amazing things and we think they are easy. Regular folk just want to launch a browser or click a mobile app and have sh@t work. My wife still won’t even use the SmartThings app even in the house because it sometimes asks for a password. And she would rather drink acid than use the Hubitat web page or dashboard. She talks to Alexa and uses HousePanel only because she thinks it is pretty. So I’m aiming to make this easy to use outside the house via an integrated option that an installer could set up. Might be too hard but I think the idea is solid.
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How do you actually connect to that ? I'm trying to find a way to access it from work when I have downtime (i have a lot). Nothing but secure computers here and no access either so I'm kind of limited to using a website.
You have to have your own publicly accessible website space where you can install house panel, after you set it up, set the password inside of house panel on the auth page and then you can access it from anywhere in the world, but remember the password is not very hard to circumvent so know the risks. I suspect our smart homes are not super juicy targets so it may be acceptable to protect with a simple hashed password like I use. The bigger risk is you can reset the password pretty easily if you know how. I’m not publishing it but there is a way.
A better way that is discussed elsewhere is to set up a VPN into your home network and access your local HP install that way. Search for VPN on this forum and you will see OpenVPN described (or just scroll up)
If you're a Mac user and have a spare Mac, you can use "Back to My Mac". You remote into the Mac at your home and access HE via a web browser on that Mac. This is a Mac to Mac solution. No good for mobile.
Not a problem. I have a r510 running windows server that I could set it up on. After reading the thread again I just want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding the capabilities of house panel. Can I actually access the hub from this method or is it just a better dashboard?
I don’t understand your question- dashboards are designed to access the hub and that is what HousePanel does, so yes and yes.
If you install VPN you can log into Hubitat remotely and use a local install of HousePanel remotely.
I mean do things like create rules and access the settings.
The "administration side" is accessible only locally via the UI of the Hub itself. It's critically important to many, probably most, that it remain isolated from the Internet. If you want to put YOURS on the Internet, feel free, but it doesn't natively support that... and we've been assured it won't.. ever.
USING the hub, turning on and off lights, setting scenes -- everything that's been created using the admin side, YES, that is accessible over the Internet. From the Admin UI, you create a Dashboard, and there are at least 3* that come immediately to mind, and having created one that suits your need, you'll find it available. [* Native Hubitat Dashboard, House Panel and SharpTools.io]
Thanks for the info. That's what I was thinking to begin with. Saw that this post was asking about that originally so I got mixed up thinking the replies were regarding that until I read it again. Thanks again
