VPN Configuration

This section covers how VPN access is configured in the ProxLink homelab using NetBird. NetBird provides secure, encrypted, and authenticated remote access to internal services across the LAN and DMZ without the complexity of traditional VPNs.

Why NetBird?

NetBird is an open-source overlay network built on WireGuard, designed to connect devices securely regardless of where they are. It is ideal for homelabs because:

• Peer-to-peer encrypted connections with automatic NAT traversal
• Centralized access policies that control which peers can reach which resources
• Routing peers that expose entire internal subnets to authorized clients
• Open source and self-hostable, including the management server

ProxLink VPN Topology

• A NetBird routing peer inside the lab advertises the internal networks to the NetBird overlay.
• Remote clients connect to the NetBird network and gain access to the LAN (192.168.2.0/24) and optionally the DMZ (192.168.3.0/24), as allowed by access policies.
• Traffic from VPN clients still passes through OPNsense, so firewall rules apply to remote access just as they do to local traffic.