ASUS Merlin on RT-AC86U OpenVPN Server not blocking IP when a client connects

[Harry Azcrac]

I think I might have misunderstood the scope of the OpenVPN capabilities, but I will post my question. Hopefully, some nice person can verify my suspicions or explain where I am wrong.

I set up an OpenVPN server on my ASUS RT-AC86U router running Merlin 368.14_2. The purpose is to give all four of my family members quick VPN access to our Phones and Laptops. I added all the clients to the ASUS and set up the laptops and phones. Everything connects properly and all seems to work well.

The problem I have is that when I checked my IP behind the running VPN, my WAN IP address is the same as the IP address assigned by AT&T. It doesn't appear to be masking the address. I ran DNS leak test and that appeared to be fine, but the IP address and location is not masked.

Is this simply beyond the capabilities of the OpenVPN? Do I need to use a paid VPN service like NORD to achieve that goal? Is the tunnel secure even without the masking?

I have read a lot of information about this and much of it is contradictory. Hopefully, someone here can straighten me out.

 

[bennor]

If you are trying to obscure your broadband IP address on local network clients when surfing then you want to setup an OpenVPN client on the router to link to a VPN service. For example, setup an OpenVPN client on the router to access free VPN servers like ProtonVPN.

How to set up your AsusWRT router for Proton VPN using OpenVPN | Proton VPN

In this article, we show you how to set up an AsusWRT router to connect to Proton VPN using the OpenVPN VPN protocol.

protonvpn.com

PS: What you experienced is normal. If you activate the VPN server on the router then connect a VPN client to that VPN server it will pull the router's WAN IP address (if the VPN server is configured for both intranet and internet access) since the VPN cleint it is being routed through the router out to the internet.

 

[Harry Azcrac]

Thank you. This is what I assumed but I wanted someone smarter than me to verify it.

I have seen posts on OpenVPN that say you can obscure the IP address by forcing all of the traffic, via an edit. to the configuration file. I know that WatchGuard has this as an option for the VPN on their appliance firewalls.

My question is what protection is being provided in my current configuration? I have the ASUS set to have the client use both the LAN and internet traffic. Is the tunnel secure that I have set up?