VPN restricts local access to Hubitat

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1

My BitDefender denies access to Hubitat.
What is my solution?
I don’t have an understanding of ports, tunneling, etc.

2

Considering the ensuing sentence ....

The solutions would be:

  1. Stop using BitDefender, or
  2. Hire a support technician to configure your BitDefender installation so that it lets your PC access your local network.

FWIW, the ports on Hubitat that your PC will need to access are TCP port 80 and TCP port 8081.

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3

Along those lines, it may be worth explaining how you want to be able to access your Hubitat hub while on the VPN. Are you wanting to use the app, accessing dashboards, admin web UI, etc?

4

Also, are you able to access other devices, and it is just Hubitat that is a problem?

5

So are you using the BitDefender virus scanner or the VPN? And/Or other security tools from them?

The VPN would tunnel all your traffic, so yes it would block you from the local LAN. It would need to be setup with a split tunnel to allow local traffic to leak from the VPN tunnel.

Another option would be to setup the VPN network wide on the router (if your router supports that), then local traffic would all work normally but anything exiting the LAN would go through the VPN.

I don't really think this is a proper place to get support on setting up your VPN though.

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6

Maybe it’s because I’m not that familiar with BitDefender, but I can’t even tell if the OP is describing an issue with remote access to a VPN server running on the LAN, or antivirus/antimalware software blocking local access when on the LAN.

BitDefender seems to offer a VPN service for the purpose of maintaining privacy of web traffic. The VPN server is presumably running somewhere else outside of the OP’s home and tunneling device traffic for privacy. Meaning it can’t allow access to local resources like Hubitat.

But they also do antivirus/antimalware protection. Could that block local access to the hub? I suppose it could.

tl;dr version: I agree with everyone else that OP is either going to need to provide a lot more details here about what they’re doing with BitDefender to enable others to try to help troubleshoot, or should seek assistance from Bitdefender support/online forum.

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7

Its possible, I am running a VPN on this machine right now, with a split tunnel by app. So for example one browser I have setup to use the VPN and another has local access. This is dependent upon the VPN software allowing split tunneling.

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I’m definitely no expert so I’m sure I could be mistaken.

But if the VPN server is running outside the user’s home LAN, how does it tunnel traffic through the router to access local resources when the user is remote?

9

Are you just running bit defender on an always on PC so you can access admin functions from outside of your local network? If so that won't work as bit defender isn't a VPN server, it's meant to browse sites on the internet via vpn. Though it should ignore local ip's. If not there should be a setting in there for local ip's.

Now if you're trying to set up a VPN to access admin functions while you're outside of your network (like from the office) that won't work. You will need an always on PC with a VPN server to handle things or if your router has a VPN function that could work to.

So as I said, I'm a little unclear by the description of your 1st message.

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10

Just like Tailscale. You don't need a server at your house to access your network. The routing is all done at the remote server.

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11

With the title and question from the op. I think he's asking about bitDefender VPN. The answer would be no. Even though it supports dual tunnel but not for remote access to your home network.

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12

Agreed but OP seems to be saying with the VPN installed he can't access stuff on his local network.... Why I asked him to clarify

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13

Yeah, I’m slightly familiar with Tailscale. Something still needs to be running on a computer at home to connect both the home LAN and the remote user to the same Tailnet, right?

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14

Yup.

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15

Yes but you don't have to deal with port forward, ip routing, manage user etc where a server software is quite complicated for an average person to configure.

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Hopefully we’ll hear back from the OP with more details about what kind of BitDefender product they’re using, and what the specific problem is that they’re running into.

Otherwise we’ll presumably end up more off-topic than we already are :slightly_smiling_face:.

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17

I was wondering if anyone had noticed he had left the party... :wink:

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