cannot get wireguard working
Hello,
I must start by saying I'm not an IT person nor do I know anything about VPNs. This is literally my first crack at trying to get any VPN working at all. I tried OpenVPN first but couldn't find any way to get a client downloaded for my Mac so I couldn't even test it. But there's a handy Wireguard app for Mac in the app store so I decided to switch to that since Wireguard is in the list of VPNs I can set up on this router.
I've followed the instructions TO THE TEE in this guide: https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/faq/3559/
Nothing works. If I activate the VPN in the app on my Mac and look at the logs, I see either:
Handshake did not complete after 5 seconds
or:
A whole bunch of "stopping" messages and then nothing after that.
I've tried restarting the app many times, to no avail. I've tried changing some of the settings, also to no avail. I've also tried something that was entirely missing from the guide: I forwarded ports 51820 and 51821 to the router itself since I believe that's where the VPN server is. I don't know how else to open ports on this thing. I tried in the firewall but there appears to be no way to "open" a "port". There's a bunch of stuff in there that makes no sense to me but the keywords "open" and "port" are nowhere to be found. Or even just the word "port" would have worked for me, but nope, not there.
Can someone please tell me what I'm missing? And please remember that I have no idea what I'm doing LOL. I have basic knowledge but know nothing about VPNs. And I really need to get *any* VPN working so that I can access some things off premeses that I haven't built front-facing logins for. If I'm fundamentally misunderstaing how a VPN should work you can also tell me that. I was expecting that it would make my laptop look like it's on the local network.
TIA.