Remote Access to servers, pc's, and VPN through USB tethered Verizon hotspot.

[Thomsimi]

Longtime lurker, first time poster!! You guys are awesome.

I have a truly truly truly unlimited data plan through verizon and it works great! Averaging 35/15 with 50ms latency from deep within my internal lan to the internet. I tried to have a friend of mine ping my public ip and realized he couldn't. I really want him to be able to access my Minecraft server, and to be able to vpn to me, but nobody can really see my ip.. requests originated from the lan work flawless. Netflix, pandora, web surfing, online gaming all work well, but I can't host $*** if nobody can see me.

Anybody know how I can circumnavigate this?? I have all MikroTik routers on the inside if that helps at all.
Thanks!!
Thomas

 

[bill001g]

I suspect your problem is carrier nat. You wan ip would be in the range 100.64.0.0/10. They do this because there is not as much need for assigned public ip on mobile broadband and they do not want to conflict with the private ip blocks users can assign for their lan.

There is no easy fix. There are some vpn providers that will give you a fixed public address....for a extra fee. Finding one of these VPN providers that has good data center location near you can be a challenge because it is not actually where you physically are but where the mobile broadband connects to the internet.

Another option will be to use VPS service and load your own vpn. These tend to be a little cheaper than a vpn with a fixed ip. Then again maybe just host your minecraft service on a VPS and make things simpler.

 

[Thomsimi]

What if I just want to be able to communicate behind that IP regardless, even if it isn't pingable. Would something like "SoftEther VPN" work? Then my buddy could just tunnel to me and I could host it locally.

 

[bill001g]

I have no idea how that vpn works. You must somehow get a actual routable IP that will then forward ports. This means the ip must be dedicated to you. Almost all vpn services use shared pools of ip. There are some that offer fixed ip.

The key problem you must solve is how does your buddy know what IP to actually connect to. This ip can not be shared between multiple users to work as you want.