Comment by wrxd

2 hours ago

What's the advantage of adding a VPS to the mix?

Having a VPS gives you a static, non-shared, stable IP with a whois that doesn’t resolve to a residential ISP.

Lot’s of ISP have moved to CGNAT where port forwarding has become a nightmare. That’s one reason. You can look at it as if your router moved from your home behind a public CGNAT, dynamic, shared IP to a public non-shared, static, stable IP on the internet.

In a workplace setting, connecting to your residential IP will raise suspicions or alarms. That being said, if you go for a cheap VPS, it also might raise alarms. Maybe your 'VPS' should be with whichever cloud provider your employer goes with so you don’t even register as a blip.

It is added complexity, but it is really very simple. Using Wireguard, you connect from a always on server in your home to your VPS. Then, using Wireguard, you configure your laptop to always connect to your VPS. Any local LLM can generate the wg-quick config files in seconds.

Also, not opening a port has become a security checkbox. If your home router isn’t a hardened Linux box, why would you prefer to let a ASUS 'WiFi Router' handle that critical networking function instead of a Linux box you can easily update and audit?