VPNMON VPNMON-R2 v2.52 -Mar 27, 2023- Monitor your VPN connection's Health (Thread locked/closed)

[cptnoblivious]

Pihole does not support that formatting in the whitelisting section. only the blocklist format is supported.

Thank you, I've corrected my post!

 

[SomeWhereOverTheRainBow]

Thank you, I've corrected my post!

For pihole users. This may not be accurate for too much longer. Right now pihole only supports ||somedomain.com^ for blocking purposes. At somepoint, they may include the others we don't yet know when that will be. Here is release notes.

 

[Jack Yaz]

@Viktor Jaep

Probably some other rogue domain on the same IP/ASN or whatever and your link has just been caught up in it as "collateral damage"?

Now you are aware and can warn the user base it's not a huge deal, just took me way longer than it should have to give the issue some serious attention and then figure out what was the hell was going on in my usual ham-fisted way - apologies for leaping to premature conclusions and getting you chasing your tail with the 388.1/beta 2/388.2 furphy I wildly threw in there. The old "correlation is not causation" chestnut!

I know a lot of the lists tend to pinch from each other so I'm wondering if Diversion is soon to be affected as well?



Looks like 6 out of the 7 work in some form or other - some return more info than just a pure IP but I guess you know that

https://api.ipify.org/ = OK
https://ip.seeip.org = ** BLOCKED **
https://api.my-ip.io/ip = OK
https://api.myip.com = OK
https://ipapi.co/ip/ = OK
https://api.ip.sb/ip = OK
https://api.country.is/ =OK

i've found ipecho.net/plain to be pretty reliable over the years

 

[Viktor Jaep]

i've found ipecho.net/plain to be pretty reliable over the years

Thanks @Jack Yaz!

 

[SomeWhereOverTheRainBow]

i've found ipecho.net/plain to be pretty reliable over the years

Thanks @Jack Yaz!

Here is a rendition of what @Jack Yaz means by "through the years"

 

[SomeWhereOverTheRainBow]

Upgraded the ol' AX6000 to 388.2 this morning... no issues to report with VPNMON-R2! (As expected from the banter above)

Yea I am rocking the AX88U-Pro ATM. It seems pretty stable with VPNMON-R2 as well!

 

[sephiclo]

Ok, if I manually add ipv4.icanhazip.com to my AdGuard Home "DNS Allowlist" I have set up and re-enable AGH then the curl command now correctly returns an IP.
Will now turn on vpnmon-r2 and retest and report.

@cptnoblivious and @sephiclo are either of you running Adguard Home (The AMTM install) by any chance? Is that the common thread?

I think we figured out the issue there, but yes I do use adblock option as my DNS, under the WAN tab. It makes browsing a bit cleaner on devices without having to worry about each device.

 

[kuki68ster]

NordVPN, right? All vpnmon does is change the IP address in the VPN slot (if you have it configured to randomly pick new servers). Else, it just stops and starts the connection. Do you see any reason if it changes that address, for it not to work? Can you try manually replacing the IP address with another valid NordVPN address, and see if you get the same result? You should, based on what you're describing?

I outlined some steps on setting up the VPN in this post here. Are you doing anything different?

Post in thread 'VPNMON-R2 v2.52 -Mar 27, 2023- Monitor your VPN connection's Health (New: AirVPN, AMTM, KILLMON, supporting WeVPN/Nord/SurfShark/PerfectPrivacy) (#2)' https://www.snbforums.com/threads/v...-surfshark-perfectprivacy-2.79762/post-776164

Also, would you mind please sending me a copy of your /jffs/add-ons/vpnmon-r2.d/vpnmon-r2.cfg file?

Hi friend, sorry for the late feedback, i was on holiday...

Nord VPN yes,

I outlined some steps on setting up the VPN in this post here. Are you doing anything different? No, i follow your instructions, and i only use one vpn slot configured to recommended connection to US.

Also, would you mind please sending me a copy of your /jffs/add-ons/vpnmon-r2.d/vpnmon-r2.cfg file? I will set it up from scratch (i deleted the config) and will send it to you.

 

[alisou]

Hello @Viktor Jaep
Did you know if VPNMON is working fine with the dual wan script (https://www.snbforums.com/threads/dual-wan-failover-v2-0-2-release.83674/) ?

Because i'm testing vpnmon with dual wan and got the error message "VPN1 Connection has failed. Executing VPN Reset" every 2 minutes.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Hello @Viktor Jaep
Did you know if VPNMON is working fine with the dual wan script (https://www.snbforums.com/threads/dual-wan-failover-v2-0-2-release.83674/) ?

Because i'm testing vpnmon with dual wan and got the error message "VPN1 Connection has failed. Executing VPN Reset" every 2 minutes.

Personally I don't, but I'm pretty sure @Stephen Harrington does? He might have some pro-tips?

 

[Stephen Harrington]

He might have some pro-tips?

Highly unlikely @Viktor Jaep - more like amateur ramblings!

@alisou the vpnmon-r2 / wan-failover script combo is very solid for me nowadays. I use an RT-AX86U and scripts as per my signature with a cheapo Huawei 4G LTE USB stick as my secondary WAN.

Are you sure you are not falling victim to something you are running blocking ipv4.icanhazip.com as we have been discussing over the last 2-3 pages of this thread? That definitely causes looping continual resets of vpnmon-r2.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Highly unlikely @Viktor Jaep - more like amateur ramblings!

I disagree!! You are a hardened beta tester that has seen it all... I'm sure your suggestions are super helpful!

@alisou
Are you sure you are not falling victim to something you are running blocking ipv4.icanhazip.com as we have been discussing over the last 2-3 pages of this thread? That definitely causes looping continual resets of vpnmon-r2.

Normally you would see the http/ping error causing a VPN reset in that case. I'll have to look at the code to see what would cause this one.

 

[Stephen Harrington]

Normally you would see the http/ping error causing a VPN reset in that case.

Ah yes, you are correct of course, but in my defence it was early and before my first coffee!

 

[Viktor Jaep]

@alisou ... the error you're getting means it probably wasn't able to ping a host through your VPN tunnel and gives up thinking that the VPN tunnel is down. Please make sure the server you're using is reachable? Are you using 8.8.8.8? I believe @Stephen Harrington was correct, and you may be blocking ipv4.icanhazip.com with one of your blocking tools, because if I were to bet, if you took a look at your VPNMON-R2 log, you would find entries that it failed due to http/ping errors?

 

[alisou]

OK... but it bugs me that you see this error... and that I can't replicate it.

Question - are you only using 1 VPN slot?

Hi @Viktor Jaep ,
I finded where is the bug
Its here :

if [ "$LOWESTPING" -eq 1 ]; then
LOWEST=$CURRCLNT
fi

1- I think that the correct syntax is (without " ):
if [ $LOWESTPING -eq 1 ]; then

2- Because i'm using only one slot.
The $LOWESTPING variable is empty.

I commented all the lines :
#if [ $LOWESTPING -eq 1 ]; then
# LOWEST=$CURRCLNT
#fi

and now 0 error

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Hi @Viktor Jaep ,
I finded where is the bug
Its here :

if [ "$LOWESTPING" -eq 1 ]; then
LOWEST=$CURRCLNT
fi

1- I think that the correct syntax is (without " ):
if [ $LOWESTPING -eq 1 ]; then

2- Because i'm using only one slot.
The $LOWESTPING variable is empty.

I commented all the lines :
#if [ $LOWESTPING -eq 1 ]; then
# LOWEST=$CURRCLNT
#fi

and now 0 error

While you are correct that the syntax may be off, that was not the cause of your "Connection has failed. Executing VPN Reset" resets. According to the code, you would only get that message if the STATUS=0 after going through a cycle. And that means that it was not able to establish a connection outbound through the means of a curl or ping to determine if the tunnel was up.

This code that tracks LOWESTPING is a variable that measures the lowest ping to the multiple VPN servers you have configured. Do you have this enabled with only 1 VPN slot configured? If so, perhaps this is what might be throwing it off? I'd definitely need to test for this.

Did you happen to look at your VPNMON-R2 log to see what the actual error is that's causing the reset?

 

[alisou]

Hi Viktor,
Sorry, I sended message about the ": bad number" bug. Related to empty variable LOWESTPING. Because i'm using only 1 slot (dedicated private OpenVPN).

Now, i have problem when using vpnmon with wan failover. I'm testing.
First, It's not related to ipv4.icanhazip.com.
I'm using 8.8.8.8 and 1.1.1.1 to check connectivity.

I'm testing two events :
1- wan0 OK, wan1, OK and then disconnect wan0 to force switching from wan0 to wan1.
In this event, vpnmon dected WAN issue and never success to detect the new wan1 connectivity.

2- wan0 disconnected, wan1 OK. connecting wan0 to force switching from wan1 to wan0. The VPN should restart to change the wan route.

wan 1 : its a ethernet lan from 4G router.
P.S : @Stephen Harrington thank you for your answer.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Hi Viktor,
Sorry, I sended message about the ": bad number" bug. Related to empty variable LOWESTPING. Because i'm using only 1 slot (dedicated private OpenVPN).

OK... but please know that the LOWESTPING option would only be beneficial if you had 2 or more VPN slots configured. If you only have 1, I would not use this functionality.

Now, i have problem when using vpnmon with wan failover. I'm testing.
First, It's not related to ipv4.icanhazip.com.
I'm using 8.8.8.8 and 1.1.1.1 to check connectivity.

I'm testing two events :
1- wan0 OK, wan1, OK and then disconnect wan0 to force switching from wan0 to wan1.
In this event, vpnmon dected WAN issue and never success to detect the new wan1 connectivity.

2- wan0 disconnected, wan1 OK. connecting wan0 to force switching from wan1 to wan0. The VPN should restart to change the wan route.

wan 1 : its a ethernet lan from 4G router.
P.S : @Stephen Harrington thank you for your answer.

What are you seeing on screen when this happens? Can you please provide any further info or screenshots?

 

[alisou]

Yes, I commented the LOWESTPING lines.
Can you add on next release testing if LOWESTPING is not empty, for people who is using only 1 slot like me ?

For my wan failover problem. Here what I have on logs when I disonnect wan0 and wan failover switch on wan 1 :

Sun Apr 23 16:25:41 CEST 2023 - VPNMON-R2 ----------> ERROR: VPN1 Connection failed - Executing VPN Reset
Sun Apr 23 16:25:41 CEST 2023 - VPNMON-R2 - Executing VPN Reset
Sun Apr 23 16:25:44 CEST 2023 - VPNMON-R2 - Killed all VPN Client Connections
Sun Apr 23 16:26:44 CEST 2023 - VPNMON-R2 ----------> ERROR: WAN CONNECTIVITY ISSUE DETECTED
Sun Apr 23 16:26:44 CEST 2023 - VPNMON-R2 ----------> ERROR: WAN CONNECTIVITY ISSUE DETECTED. VPN RESET TERMINATED.
Sun Apr 23 16:26:46 CEST 2023 - VPNMON-R2 - WAN Link Detected -- Trying to reconnect/Reset VPN

I have and idea to restart the vpnmon from wan failover script after switch wan ?
I tested : vpnmon-r2 -reset. But didn't work.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Yes, I commented the LOWESTPING lines.
Can you add on next release testing if LOWESTPING is not empty, for people who is using only 1 slot like me ?

For my wan failover problem. Here what I have on logs when I disonnect wan0 and wan failover switch on wan 1 :

Sun Apr 23 16:25:41 CEST 2023 - VPNMON-R2 ----------> ERROR: VPN1 Connection failed - Executing VPN Reset
Sun Apr 23 16:25:41 CEST 2023 - VPNMON-R2 - Executing VPN Reset
Sun Apr 23 16:25:44 CEST 2023 - VPNMON-R2 - Killed all VPN Client Connections
Sun Apr 23 16:26:44 CEST 2023 - VPNMON-R2 ----------> ERROR: WAN CONNECTIVITY ISSUE DETECTED
Sun Apr 23 16:26:44 CEST 2023 - VPNMON-R2 ----------> ERROR: WAN CONNECTIVITY ISSUE DETECTED. VPN RESET TERMINATED.
Sun Apr 23 16:26:46 CEST 2023 - VPNMON-R2 - WAN Link Detected -- Trying to reconnect/Reset VPN

I have and idea to restart the vpnmon from wan failover script after switch wan ?
I tested : vpnmon-r2 -reset. But didn't work.

If this is working for @Stephen Harrington, then I'm not understanding why it isn't for you. Once VPNMON-R2 detects a valid WAN connection, it will try to reinitiate a VPN tunnel.