VPN is a good solution unless the remote machine is already running another VPN (work machine for example) and that already existing VPN does not allow split traffic.
Doing a quick survey, there are a good number of routers that allow you specify a single IP address to qualify port forwarding, but not so many that allow multiple IPs (whitelist).
@CrimpOn wrote:
Your observation is correct that Orbi does not provide a method to limit connections when forwarding ports. That appears to be left to the device that will be accepting the connections. As far as I am aware, none of Netgear's residential routers have such a feature. What I do to strictly limit access is set up OpenVPN so that only devices with the correct OpenVPN credentials can access my local LAN.
It would be really useful to know which residential routers feature whitelists on port forwarding. (I keep a lists of "things to research" for when it comes time to replace my Orbi system and this would be something to keep track of.)
