Ok, so I consider myself to be fairly literate when it comes to computers and stuff like that until it comes to wifi and internet stuff.
Right now I have att and their bgw320-505 router/modem. I’m forced to use it, but can’t put a vpn on it. I know I can bridge it to another router that supports VPN but that’s as far as I know.
Is there a specific brand of routers that works well with the att one? I though I heard that att won’t cooperate if it detects a vpn on your router (I could be wrong)
There’s plenty of threads and posts on this subject, but none that dumb it down enough for me to understand. Once I get a router I’d still be pretty lost on how to actually set it up properly. So any help would be appreciated.
If you’re able to put the BGW320-505 into bridge mode, it should act like a plain ONT and just give you a regular Ethernet Internet connection out, like a plain cable modem would. Your router should get your public Internet IP address on its WAN interface, and basically handle everything.
I expect AT&T won’t support your VPN issues, in the same way that any ISP wouldn’t support any random thing you did that had nothing to do with them. Since your traffic is flowing through them, they will be able tell you’re using a VPN. As long as the VPN is properly secured, they won’t be able to see any data flowing through the VPN connection though.
Are you trying to route all your traffic through a public VPN service, or set up your own VPN for remote access to your home network? If it’s the latter you can set up a VPN server on a raspberry pi or old laptop/PC. I do this with my AT&T gateway and it works like a charm – no need for bridge mode or a new router.
BGW320 actually does not support true bridged mode, only IP Passthrough, at least not with AT&T. The NAT table is small, but for the most part, the difference is negligible, and will likely be even more negligible with VPN use. I am not sure what OP means by “put a VPN on it” but for inbound VPN (i.e. from my phone to my house), the BGW320 in IP Passthrough mode was totally fine.
Is there a guide you recommend for the raspberry pi? I have a pi 3 sitting around thats not being used.
Yes! This is what I used with a Pi 3:
