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Solved OpenVPN start cut 99% of my internet connection

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I have the last days troubled with low speed on internet. Spite fiber. Therefore and because it was 12 years old, my provider installed a new house-central to days ago. It helped not som much and my old ASUS AC68-U is now also replaced with ASUS RT-AX86U Pro.

Everything worked perfect until I open the OpenVPN on my computer (the same happen on my laptop): The speed drop from 150 mips to 2,0 mips. When I shut down OpenVPN the speed is back to 150 mips. I use the OpenVPN to have contact with a webcamera 300 km from home and there has not been any change there. It work, but on pics in minute with that slow speed on OpenVPN:

Use of OpenVPN on computer and laptop has worked fine before for many years, so something happen with new router and housecentral. I have tried everything, change cabel to wifi, upgraded OpenVPN to 2.6.19-1003 amd64 (on my win10 pro) and checked network adapter which function OK. (I have still my old OpenVPN on the laptop and now behavure difference between the now on the computer and the laptop).

Hope for help.
 
No issues here using OpenVPN clients to connect to distant sites. Win11 and OSX clients.
What firmware do you have on the AX86U Pro?
 
The speed over a VPN will be the weakest/slowest link between your current ISP location speeds, and the remote ISP location speeds, in addition to the CPU penalty the router/device you're using for the VPN too, of course.

Is the upload at the camera site ~2Mbps upload (it doesn't matter what the download speed there is).
 
I'm trying to understand and please let me know where I'm wrong.
So you're connecting to a random place 300km away to a router acting as VPN server with a configuration you don't know (or share?).
And you're doing speedtest and it's slow?

If you disconnect from OpenVPN everything is good. That tells you have 0 problems with local LAN and local router.

I suspect remote router configuration tunnels everything. So when you're speedtest'ing...you're sending all the traffic to the remote location. And then it goes to internet and does the job. Return to remote router and tunnled to OpenVPN to reach your laptop/desktop.
And if the remote location has low speed or the router on the other side is not too powerful...what you're seeing is working as expected.

If you want to tunnel only the traffic to that camera, you can configure the remote router only to tunnel local LAN through OpenVPN.
Also, worth rebooting remote router every now and then if you're doing often OpenVPN to it.
 
Sorry for late answer, but due to heavy thunderstorm I haven't dared to put any computer on.
I am using the latest firmware on my RT-AX86U pro router. Everything works fine including when I click the OpenVPN Gui icon - (places the little square down right on my screen). But as soon as I open and connect to client1.ovpn the internet drops to 2 mips. As soon as client1 is disconnected, the speed is back to the normal 150 mips. To be more precis, the slowdown happen before I even use the tunnel to the remote , router, webcamera og else.

The same happen both at my computer and on the laptop (the laptop unchanged the last months, but the computer with upgraded OpenVPN).

There has been no change on the remote router the last 6 months and the webcamera there has worked fine every day and send both stream and pictures as normal. Now I am happy to get one picture per minute.

Due to the fact that the slowdown happen to both, I am wonder if the problem source isn't in any of them, but possibly in the new router or the new fiber-housecentral. The new fiber-housecentral/router is set in bridge and I can't reach it and can't do anything with it.

I have tried to compare old setting in a simular asus router with the new one, but can't see any difference. However there should be. Hope for suggestions.
 
Last edited:
I'm trying to understand and please let me know where I'm wrong.
So you're connecting to a random place 300km away to a router acting as VPN server with a configuration you don't know (or share?).
And you're doing speedtest and it's slow?

If you disconnect from OpenVPN everything is good. That tells you have 0 problems with local LAN and local router.

I suspect remote router configuration tunnels everything. So when you're speedtest'ing...you're sending all the traffic to the remote location. And then it goes to internet and does the job. Return to remote router and tunnled to OpenVPN to reach your laptop/desktop.
And if the remote location has low speed or the router on the other side is not too powerful...what you're seeing is working as expected.

If you want to tunnel only the traffic to that camera, you can configure the remote router only to tunnel local LAN through OpenVPN.
Also, worth rebooting remote router every now and then if you're doing often OpenVPN to it.

Thank you very much, drabisan.
I can't remember / have no statistic on the speed on the tunnel before, but it was no problem and much better than now.

Off course I have restarted the remote router and happy to be able to do it through the alarm system. The remote router use a wireless provider and normally give 100 mips both up and down lokal.

Is there any way I can keep the internet speed on the computer even when the vpn tunnel is active?

I enclose a picture which show the two open internet connection on my home computer (when openvpn is on).

net.jpg
 
In the OpenVPN server on the router you have the option to tunnel LAN or everything.
You don't need to tunnel everything, cause you're happy with the internet you have at home. So internet does not need to be encapsulated and "shipped" far away, just LAN bound traffic for the other side.
 
In the OpenVPN server on the router you have the option to tunnel LAN or everything.
You don't need to tunnel everything, cause you're happy with the internet you have at home. So internet does not need to be encapsulated and "shipped" far away, just LAN bound traffic for the other side.
Very good, thank you.
But must ask, do you mean that I change settings on the remote server (where the OpenVPN server is). I enclose a picture of the servers settings. What to change?

Can Samba on my new router cause the problem?
 

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Basic OpenVPN configuration (not Advanced Settings) should have something like "Clients should use VPN to access" with 2 options "Local network only" and "Internet and local network".
I have a ROG router and my interface is different.

And yes, setting that needs changing is on the remote router.
 
Basic OpenVPN configuration (not Advanced Settings) should have something like "Clients should use VPN to access" with 2 options "Local network only" and "Internet and local network".
I have a ROG router and my interface is different.

And yes, setting that needs changing is on the remote router.
The solution is near, thank you very, very much. I enclose picture of vpn general settings and there I have used "both". Changing it to "Lan only" is your advice?
I suppose such change need export of a new client1? (I have earlier exported both client1 and client2 files and can test on client2.
 

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I'm not sure if that setting is actually presented in client.ovpn file. It should not, I mean...it's easy to be vpn server decision and client will just follow.
Client should only follow routes updated after the vpn session is established. So if default route (that's internet and it will include remote LAN) will be pushed by the VPN server, client will obey. But if only the remote LAN subnet is pushed, client will only learn that route through the VPN tunnel.
 
The speed over a VPN will be the weakest/slowest link between your current ISP location speeds, and the remote ISP location speeds, in addition to the CPU penalty the router/device you're using for the VPN too, of course.

Is the upload at the camera site ~2Mbps upload (it doesn't matter what the download speed there is).

And of course, the router/device used at the remote location.

All the links in the 'chain' need to be as capable as possible, otherwise, the weakest link will be the fastest this VPN will ever be, as is.
 
I'm not sure if that setting is actually presented in client.ovpn file. It should not, I mean...it's easy to be vpn server decision and client will just follow.
Client should only follow routes updated after the vpn session is established. So if default route (that's internet and it will include remote LAN) will be pushed by the VPN server, client will obey. But if only the remote LAN subnet is pushed, client will only learn that route through the VPN tunnel.
Thanks, I'll try it tomorrow and let you know.
 
Fantastic, drabisan, you made my day."Lan only" work fine and now I have regained full internet speed even when the OpenVPN tunnel is on. I didn't need to change client1.
 

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