I am going out of town for work and I need to be able to manage ESXi/unRAID remotely so if something goes wrong I can fix it so my wife can continue to use it.

 

I was thinking of using a VPN but what would be the best way to do so?

 

I was thinking of VPN'ing and remote desktop into my PC to access my ESXi/unRAID.  Would this way make it so that ESXi and unraid are not directly connected to the internet?

 

What VPN and DNS service should I use?  Should I setup my VPN server on my router, PC, or on my ESXi server as an appliance?

I use OpenVPN setup on my router that is running Tomato Shibby firmware. Once I'm VPNed into my home network, I can directly connect to the web interface or ssh to my unRAID server. Works great. No need to have another PC turned on inside my home network. Just VPN in and connect directly to whatever machine I need.

what free DNS service would you recommend?

 

I'm actually paying for DynDNS, but I've seen people recommend FreeDNS. Can't say personally as I've not used FreeDNS myself.

I have a Windows VM on my ESXi box that has the vSphere Client installed. Also on that the Windows VM, I have Chrome Remote Desktop installed so I can remotely use that VM (and unRAID) from anywhere via Chrome.

 

Only downside to this is that if the ESXi machine goes down for whatever reason, it's not possible to access it.

what free DNS service would you recommend?

http://duckdns.org

 

Up to four free dynamic names. Updater clients for all platforms. Or just do it from cron;

eg.

echo url="https://www.duckdns.org/update?domains=myduckdnsdomanname&token=5f3f34gff-3786-4169-a5af-751e3335cfb1&ip=" | curl -k -o /opt/duckdns/duck.log -K -

I remote admin into my router and forward ports to my ESXi server.

In vSphere enter your routers WAN IP and connect as normal. When done simply close up the router ports for security sake.

 

Here's the ports:

 

https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-55/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vsphere.hostclient.doc%2FGUID-5071C86E-FF1E-4E54-A424-A20917401160.html