OpenVPN (WiFi) problem ...

[Tom_Hall]

Hi - I'm on Merlin 378.54_2, on a RT-AC87U

I'm trying to vpn from my Galaxy S4 phone running Android 5.0.1 using OpenVPN Connect ...

On my router, I enabled OpenVPN Server 1,
In the Advanced Settings, I changed the VPN Subnet from 10.8.0.0 to 192.168.10.0, applied the settings, then added myself as a user & applied the settings again.
I exported the client.opvn, copied it to my phone, and then imported it into OpenVPN Connect.

Problem is that when I try to connect, it hangs at "waiting for server", and eventually times-out

After Goggling, I found a post that suggesting disabling WiFi (on my phone), which I did, and now VPN connects Ok (over 3G)

But I really would prefer to VPN over WiFi as 3G is poor in my area - does anyone have any suggestions ?

-Tom

 

[M.G.]

I'm having the same problem with OpenVPN Connect, though with an RT-AC68P with 378.4585 stock firmware and a Galaxy Note 4. I registered on the forums in the hope of getting some help with this issue myself.

After playing with this for much of yesterday evening, I found that I could connect fine to the VPN via WiFi or 4G, as long as the WiFi was not to the same router that was serving the VPN. I actually have 2 of the routers, one on FiOS and one on Cablevision, so debugging was almost fun. VPN-ing (is that a word?) over WiFi out Cablevision and back in FiOS, or vica-versa, worked very well.

I'm starting to think that the Asus firmware has an issue/problem/restriction with their VPN and NAT loopback.

 

[M.G.]

I had some more time this morning to play with it, and made some progress, was able to connect, but I'm not happy yet.

It turns out, client.ovpn is a text file. The 4th line down, starting with 'remote' contains the URL or IP address of the VPN server and its port number. I made two copies of the file: Local.ovpn and Remote.ovpn. In Remote.ovpn, I changed the URL to be my Dynamic DNS name (whatever.duckdns.org). In Local.ovpn, I used the internal IP of the router serving the VPN (192.168.x.y). Be careful not to mess up any of the encoded keys or other lines when editing. I then deleted the client.ovpn profile from OpenVPN Connect and imported the two modified ones. When I'm connected to my router's WiFi, I use the local profile, otherwise use the remote profile. To make switching easier, I created shortcuts (via OpenVPN's menu). I believe there's a way to enable OpenVPN Connect to automatically try the different profiles until one connects successfully, but I haven't played with that yet.

But, two other problems: (1) I had 2 port-forwards in my router that both stop working when the VPN Server is enabled, and (2) the WiFi calling on my phone does not seem to be working well.

If anyone knows a better way to set this all up, I'd like to hear it.

Edit: Actually two problems.