AT&T Community Forums

Is it possible to have the policy adjusted so I can access my home router's advanced settings over the WAN?

I just received a new router and was pretty excited to try out the new app until I tried using it. In theory, it's a great idea and I can understand why the default policy is to only allow access to advanced settings while connected to the local LAN, however, that limitation seriously limits the usefulness of the app for some users. I am away from home attempting to connect to a device at home that will require port forwarding to a static IP and I was hopeful that I could jump on the app, make the changes, and then connect to the device from my current location. If there isn't a way to have the privileges escalated to where I can connect to my router remotely over the WAN to make advanced changes, I'm confused as to why the app exists in the first place. Sure, I can see which devices are connected to my LAN and maybe even reboot my router remotely over the WAN (I think, however haven't tried that yet) but beyond that, it doesn't appear to have much of a purpose. If I could make changes, such as port forwarding over the WAN though, that would be amazing. and incredibly useful; a true quality-of-life enhancement! There are workarounds to this problem, however, that would require additional software and configuration to make the device accessible over the WAN but if I do that, there is absolutely no need for the app in the first place as I could remote directly into the router itself via browser and use the full GUI as I would if I was at home. Is there any way to have the privileges escalated if the customer acknowledges the risks of allowing this functionality and is willing to release AT&T from liabilities if the router were to become compromised due to a lost phone or some other similar circumstance the engineers were considering when locking us out of advanced settings while off-network?

T-

Responses

Accepted Solution

JefferMC

ACE - Expert

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35.8K Messages

29 days ago

The "Advanced Settings..." button of Smart Home Manager basically redirects you to the default local IP address of the Gateway (http://192.168.1.254/ ). It will never work outside the home. This is not something AT&T is going to change. If remote access is important to you, you'll have to set up some sort of VPN server inside your network. Then when outside your home, you can connect to your home network via the VPN and access it that way.

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thechef1

Tutor

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460 Messages

29 days ago

What router are you using?

Have you used the Device - Remote Access web feature (if using a BGW210 or BGW320)?

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Timb1971

4 Messages

29 days ago

It's a BGW210-700. I received it just a couple of days ago and, due to travel obligations at work, I haven't had the time to really dig into the GUI to see what all is possible since I haven't been at home much. Are you saying that the BGW210 offers remote access over the WAN with full administrative privilege's? If so, that is awesome and I will definitely be enabling that. I'm assuming I'll have to enable the functionality while at home for future use as I couldn't imagine that being enabled by default since the vast majority over users would have no use for it.

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Timb1971

4 Messages

29 days ago

Oh Ok, I was gonna say... I was skeptical that a router provided by AT&T would have a native ability allowing remote access over the WAN; evidently my hopefulness was causing me to read in something you weren't saying. The assumption that this feature might be allowed on the app just seemed like it might be a possibility. If the feature was limited to phones activated on AT&T's network, it could be much more secure than just allowing remote access to any device over the WAN. If the remote access was restricted to WAN devices operating on AT&T's network and the device accessing the network was bound to the exact same account as the router in question, there would be multiple layers of authentication for a bad guy to get past to compromise a users network, physical (my device) and digital (my AT&T credentials). Of course, this is a feature that only a very small minority would ever want/need so it is wishful thinking for me to think that AT&T would invest the time & money to make it happen since they would basically be introducing a potential doorway into every customers network simply to make things more convenient for a minority of users; a secure hole is still a hole, nonetheless.

Yeah, I'll set up a VPN if that's the only option, but that only partially solves my problem; I'd need a hardware VPN so I could remotely access my LAN as a whole so I can then access anything connected to it.. I often bring servers home to repair or configure and and they belong to clients. I usually don't have time to individually install a VPN on each one of them, or the elevation in many cases, in case of a need for remote access to finish a job when I get called away to a site for a break/fix. It would just nice to be able to work on the machines at home while I am sitting in a clients MDF waiting for patches to download/install to be a bit more efficient.

(edited)

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