Two things I would like to know how to do with MerlinWRT

[JohnnyWol]

Hi,

I just bought Asus RT-AC56U and uploaded the latest Merlin build version 376.47 to the router and it's kicking fine. I configured everything and also got my OpenVPN working straight away. I have now spent four hours surfing and searching answers for the few questions and features I still would like to implement, but it seems that either I just cannot find it or the more obvious reason might me that I just don't know/understand the system well enough to implement these settings.

I have read all of the Wiki etc. and as I don't have even a basic understanding of scripting, it's hard to see which scripts would be those that I need to do. Also this JFFS - partitioning system is quite odd to me, but as I understood that if i make any script/file executable, the router should run it when I reboot it...

If someone could explain me, in detail, how can I do these things It would be much appreciated.

1. What does it mean that I can have two OpenVPN clients and they can be running at the same time ? Is this some kind of a redundancy if the other fails ?

2. How do I establish a "kill switch", so if my VPN fails, my Internet drops, so I don't have a connection before the VPN is up again ?
(No, I cannot use the DNS "cheat" as this VPN - provider doesn't have own DNS - servers. I have read about scripts, but as I mentioned, I don't have clear knowledge what script to use)

3. How can I bypass the VPN on some specific sites, like YouTube or any other site I would like to have fast speed and would not need to use the VPN ?

I know most of you pro's could just link me a Wiki etc. but I have read a lot of those and just could not find any clear answers to my questions. If you know the answer, please let me know.

Thanks in advance !

-JW-

 

[JohnnyWol]

Bump

Anyone ?

Or is this too basic to ask about in these forums ?

-JW-

 

[Hakon_H]

I have been looking for a solution to route only torrents this is what i have found.
https://www.privateinternetaccess.c...h-the-vpn-to-a-specific-interface-in-linux/p1

I have not tested it!!! seems a bit to much

 

[Martineau]

Hi,

I just bought Asus RT-AC56U and uploaded the latest Merlin build version 376.47 to the router and it's kicking fine. I configured everything and also got my OpenVPN working straight away. I have now spent four hours surfing and searching answers for the few questions and features I still would like to implement, but it seems that either I just cannot find it or the more obvious reason might me that I just don't know/understand the system well enough to implement these settings.

I have read all of the Wiki etc. and as I don't have even a basic understanding of scripting, it's hard to see which scripts would be those that I need to do. Also this JFFS - partitioning system is quite odd to me, but as I understood that if i make any script/file executable, the router should run it when I reboot it...

If someone could explain me, in detail, how can I do these things It would be much appreciated.

1. What does it mean that I can have two OpenVPN clients and they can be running at the same time ? Is this some kind of a redundancy if the other fails ?

2. How do I establish a "kill switch", so if my VPN fails, my Internet drops, so I don't have a connection before the VPN is up again ?
(No, I cannot use the DNS "cheat" as this VPN - provider doesn't have own DNS - servers. I have read about scripts, but as I mentioned, I don't have clear knowledge what script to use)

3. How can I bypass the VPN on some specific sites, like YouTube or any other site I would like to have fast speed and would not need to use the VPN ?

I know most of you pro's could just link me a Wiki etc. but I have read a lot of those and just could not find any clear answers to my questions. If you know the answer, please let me know.

Thanks in advance !

-JW-

Clearly the most important wiki (written by RMerlin explictly for his custom firmware) is this:

https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin/wiki

which has everything you need to know about JFFS and creating User scripts, together with script examples such as a custom script to implement selective routing based on SSID.

If you search this forum for 'selective routing' you will see this thread

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=9311&highlight=selective+routinghttp://

with more than 57,000 viewings. As usual, reading backward through the thread will show the better scripts as the early postings were incomplete or have been significantly improved.

Using the two OpenVPN clients concurrently does work, and can provide say a method to connect to a single VPN endpoint using different protocols TCP or UDP (to bypass corporate firewall restrictions etc.) or can provide two separate geographical location spoofing endpoints.

Selective routing by URL is very difficult... see how many IP addesses are actually used when resolving say 'www.facebook.com' using nslookup etc.

So by far the easiest method for selective routing is by device; so for wired devices that connect to the ASUS router ensure that they have a static IP.

For wireless devices, you have more flexibilty; i.e. you could again ensure that they have a static IP, but why not set up guest SSIDs that have the appropriate routing e.g. Guest Network1 uses VPN1, whilst the main SSID uses a non-VPN direct ISP connection...so simply connect to the appropriate SSID for speed or privacy!

Finally, it is also possible to force a device to ONLY use a VPN route and it will be blocked from using the normal WAN.

Regards,

 

[JohnnyWol]

Thanks !

Thanks Martineau & Hakon_H,

I actually solved this problem by making a proxy server to another "always on" PC. This way the always on PC is connected to the VPN via the client and actually in the VPN client program there is a kill switch - feature that can stop any selected processes. I put the proxy server program also to the "kill list" among the others, so every device that I have now connected to the proxy server works and IF the VPN drops, they will lose connection and I know exactly what is going on.

Also this is very easy way to bypass the proxy as there are native settings in Windows and MacOS that you can just put web pages and domains that you don't want to go through the VPN --> I can get maximum speed on some services that I don't mind seeing my real IP. Also because the router doesn't have VPN configured, I can also easily just tick the proxy off if the VPN provider has a bad day (servers down or slow connection etc.). All in all, now I know for sure is the VPN on or off. For now this seems a working solution and tinkering with code in the router is just tad too advanced for me at this moment.

Again, thanks for the answers !

-JW-