VoIP Setup on AC68U with Astrill VPN Applet

[rockusultimus]

I've got an Asus AC68U running Merlin firmware 374.43_2 and I'm trying to get my VoIP line to work with Astrill VPN applet. My phone works when the VPN is disconnected (so the port forwarding on the WAN settings is setup properly) but not when the VPN is connected. I've added the VoIP adapter (Cisco SPA112) IP as a DMZ device under the Port Forward tab in the Astrill VPN applet.

Any assistance is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

[stroopwaffel]

VoIP Setup on AC68U with Astrill Applet

I had this happen to me while using several VoIP applications on my iPhone. At the time, AT&T U-Verse was my internet service provider. Whenever I would use the AT&T internet my VoIP applications did not work but whenever I would force the traffic over the Astrill VPN connection, the same VoIP apps works without any issues. I finally concluded [maybe erroneously] that AT&T was the problem because the Astrill Los Angeles 1 Server uses someone other than AT&T as the ISP.

I finally fixed this by including my iPhone [or excluding whichever is the case in your scenario] in the Astrill VPN device list. By assigning a fixed IP address and including the device in the Astrill VPN device list my VoIP applications worked without issues. Now that I am with Charter, I have once again excluded my iPhone from the Astrill VPN device list and my VoIP apps are working fine.

I hope this helps.

 

[rockusultimus]

@stroopwaffel,
thanks for your experience.

Are you suggesting excluding the VoIP adapter so that VoIP traffic does NOT go through VPN? You're right, that does work, but I am trying to avoid that; I would prefer the VoIP go through the VPN.

Is anyone sending VoIP through VPN with Astrill applet? Your advice please.

 

[owine]

I believe you need an add on service from Astrill to be able to forward ports. Do you have this? If not, the NAT is occuring on Astrill's server which you cannot configure to forward for obvious reasons.

 

[rockusultimus]

I finally got this working with Astrill's help. I had to do the following:
1. disable port forwarding in the WAN section
2. connect to dedicated IP server in the Astrill applet ($$ addon)
3. add my VoIP provider's (freephoneline.ca) address to Astrill applet Site Filter IP List
4. add my Cisco VoIP ATA's IP to Astrill applet DMZ (Port Forward)

My question for you pros is... is this worth the effort?
My intention was to have VoIP traffic through the VPN - should I bother?
Is adding the Cisco ATA to the DMZ safe? I haven't opened up any ports, just added it's internal IP to DMZ.

Any suggestions or experiences?

Thank you

 

[RMerlin]

Personally, I don't like the idea of running SIP through a VPN tunnel. With VoIP you want to eliminate anything that could introduce latency.

The ATA shouldn't need to be in the DMZ. In fact, you shouldn't need to configure anything the router. My Cisco SPA112 handles everything itself, without the need of port forwards or anything.

 

[rockusultimus]

@RMerlin,
Thanks for your reply!

This is interesting. If you're not sending your VoIP traffic through the VPN, do you not still need to setup WAN settings to forward ports 5060:5061 and 16384:16481 to the Cisco ATA?

 

[RMerlin]

@RMerlin,
Thanks for your reply!

This is interesting. If you're not sending your VoIP traffic through the VPN, do you not still need to setup WAN settings to forward ports 5060:5061 and 16384:16481 to the Cisco ATA?

No, no port forward at all. The ATA is responsible for registering with the SIP provider, this is an outbound connection.