Multiple clients to individual AirVPN servers

[bhennink]

I have discovered that some servers are blacklisted and checked 8 ones that I made sure of they are OK.

The normal config is have a config file for all servers in country of interest.
What happens ig I add for example 5 client entries to one individual server?
Will they all try to connect or is that a fall back situation where if the 1sty fails, the 2nd kicks in?
Would that be a valid strategy?

Greets,
Bert

 

[eibgrad]

It's not normal, nor recommended, to have more than one OpenVPN client connected at the same time. At least not when dealing w/ commercial OpenVPN providers. Each OpenVPN provider will attempt to change the OpenVPN client's default gateway to its own VPN. And if you have more than one OpenVPN client active at the same time, you'll create a mess. As each OpenVPN client gets connected, it will stomp on the previous OpenVPN client's changes to the routing table!

The only time it makes sense to have more than one OpenVPN client is if you are using policy based routing, and plan to send specific clients on the local network through specific OpenVPN clients (e.g., for load balancing purposes, or perhaps to let specific clients appear to be coming from different countries).

That said, if you want to have more than one OpenVPN server considered for *one* OpenVPN client, then you need to specify those as remote directives in the Custom Config field of that OpenVPN client.

server-poll-timeout 10
remote 91.227.222.7 5353 # United Kingdom, Cambridge
remote 91.227.222.7 5000 # United Kingdom, Cambridge
remote 23.19.26.250 5353 # United States, Los Angeles
remote 23.19.26.250 5000 # United States, Los Angeles
...

Those remotes will be processed one at a time, round robin, until a connection is made.

Note, I use the server-poll-timeout directive to limit how long I want the OpenVPN client to wait before trying the next server.

 

[bhennink]

It's not normal, nor recommended, to have more than one OpenVPN client connected at the same time. At least not when dealing w/ commercial OpenVPN providers.

That said, if you want to have more than one OpenVPN server considered for *one* OpenVPN client, then you need to specify those as remote directives in the Custom Config field of that OpenVPN client.

server-poll-timeout 10
remote 91.227.222.7 5353 # United Kingdom, Cambridge
remote 91.227.222.7 5000 # United Kingdom, Cambridge
remote 23.19.26.250 5353 # United States, Los Angeles
remote 23.19.26.250 5000 # United States, Los Angeles
...

Those remotes will be processed one at a time, round robin, until a connection is made.

Note, I use the server-poll-timeout directive to limit how long I want the OpenVPN client to wait before trying the next server.

@eibgrad, I think this round robbin solution is exactly what I was thinking of. This is how the desktop app ( Eddie) of airvpn works.
Could I do this in the ASUS merlin software?

I would like to combine this with a kill switch in the router

 

[eibgrad]

Yes you can. Here's what I do.

I sometimes use a free VPN called SecurityKISS.com for development and testing purposes. I have a complete list of all their servers, and so I add them all to the Custom Config field as remote directive.

server-poll-timeout 10
remote 91.227.222.7 5353 # United Kingdom, Cambridge
remote 91.227.222.7 5000 # United Kingdom, Cambridge
remote 69.175.85.2 5353 # United States, Chicago
remote 69.175.85.2 5000 # United States, Chicago
remote 78.46.254.48 5353 # Germany, Nuremberg
remote 78.46.254.48 5000 # Germany, Nuremberg
remote 217.147.94.149 5353 # United Kingdom, Maidenhead
remote 217.147.94.149 5000 # United Kingdom, Maidenhead
remote 178.63.171.106 5353 # Germany, Nuremberg
remote 178.63.171.106 5000 # Germany, Nuremberg
remote 178.32.250.32 5353 # United Kingdom, London
remote 178.32.250.32 5000 # United Kingdom, London
remote 173.212.205.240 5353 # Germany, Munich
remote 173.212.205.240 5000 # Germany, Munich
remote 195.154.232.143 5353 # France, Paris
remote 195.154.232.143 5000 # France, Paris
remote 51.38.95.51 5353 # United Kingdom, Gosport
remote 51.38.95.51 5000 # United Kingdom, Gosport
remote 51.38.95.36 5353 # United Kingdom, Portsmouth
remote 51.38.95.36 5000 # United Kingdom, Portsmouth
#remote 23.19.73.147 5353 # United States, Los Angeles
remote 23.19.73.147 5000 # United States, Los Angeles

Notice that *one* of them is commented out. That's the one I specify in the OpenVPN client GUI (Server Address and Port). It's the first server to which a connection is attempted. I chose it because after a lot of testing, I found it to be the one that connects successfully most often. But someone else might choose a server because it's closer, or perhaps more lightly loaded. If that connection is NOT successful (and it will only wait 10 secs to make that determination due to the server-poll-timeout directive (which you can adjust to your liking)), then the OpenVPN client just runs through all the other remotes, in order, until it makes a connection, or has to return to the top of the list and start over.

There's also a remote-random directive you can add that scrambles the list of remotes first, then runs through the scrambled list. I don't use it, but the OpenVPN documentation suggests using it for load balancing purposes.