Asus VPN Setup

[Phil Rockliffe]

Hi All,

Very quick question. I have an Asus RT-AC87U modem and fibre broadband.
I understand the router will run a VPN itself giving our household a secure connection for all devices using it.
What I can't work out is will it do this itself or do I need to subscribe to VPN service provider also and enter their details into the router.
I don't know if the router running the VPN just removes the need for the 'connection software' on all devices or if it does it all itself and I don't need a paid for service?

Thanks.

Phil

 

[bill001g]

There are 2 types and I forget which comes with the default firmware. If you load the asus-merlin firmware it definitely has both.

The reason for the confusion is you can run in "server" mode or "client" mode.

The server mode is used if you were outside your house and wanted to access say a file server inside your house. You would load vpn software say on your laptop and you could then connect to your house securely say from a open coffee shop.

The other is client mode. This is generally where you are connecting to some VPN service. This is mostly done to hide your actual IP address from the sites you are accessing. Although there are free VPN service sites I would not recommend them. They try to make you "pay" by inserting ads into the data stream or collecting data from your connection. Most paid vpn services tend to be under $10/month.

Which vpn provider you pick is going to depend greatly why you are doing it. Some sites make a point of not keeping logs and allowing you to run things like torrent which tends to be used for illegal file sharing. These sites tend to cost a little more than the sites where you are say just trying to hide your IP address or get around geo location restrictions.

Now of course you could use the client mode to connect to a friends router who has it running in server mode. This is what say a business would do to share files between offices.

 

[Phil Rockliffe]

Cheers Bill,

The router comes with both. I can select server or client and what type 'open' or 'pttp' or something similar. I have successfully set up PureVPN using the VPN tab in the routers config table and it has checked the connection and given me a lovely big 'tick' to say its running. However the moment it starts I loose connection to the internet. Switch off the VPN service in the config table and internet connection resumes.
I must be missing something.
We are running fibre broadband through a stock BT Wholesale modem which is wired to the RT-AC87U. I wanted to try and set up the router as the server....so all the devices in the household can connect to it as normal (without the need for any VPN software installs) and they will get funneled through the router that acts as a server to the Pure VPN service I've subscribed to.
I just keep losing the internet.?
I will endeavor to grab a page of the config page if that helps?

regards

Phil

 

[bill001g]

You want to set it up as a client. The end device do nothing to them it is just a normal router.

VPN tends to be tricky to setup sometimes. Other than follow the VPN providers instructions there is little I can directly recommend. Very small parameter differences can cause major issues. You should be able to see something in the routers log.

 

[Phil Rockliffe]

Cheers mate.

I've opened a support ticket with PureVPN and I've tried the open client with the UDP opvn file they provide etc etc.
So fingers crossed they can help.
Slowly learning as I go so not all bad.
Thanks again.
Phil