Question uTorrent + Smart/RG SR515 router + Mullvad VPN, port forwarding

[Kisianik]

Hi
As you probably noticed my almost the same question on this forum, why another router, you may ask.
Very simple. I have 2 ISP providers from times of Covid when we had to work from home and wanted guaranteed Internet connection, so I have 2 connections and can switch more or less easy between them.
I would prefer to use Smart/RG router for this project (as Asus supports all home network including TV etc), but can not find any guides at all on this matter.
Anyone knows something?

Any help very appreciated.

 

[bill001g]

People post the same question days apart and I don't see it, your other post is 6 months ago my memory is not that good

It is unclear what your new goal is. If you go back to that post I put in a solution that allows both connections to live to your pc at the same time.

So if instead of changing the gateway with the route command you get fancy and and put in routes for specific site you can run both.

You could for example send all ip related to one game company to the backup connection and leave everything else run on the primary. For something like torrent I am unsure what options it has. It might have the ability to use multiple destination IP as part of the program. For your more simple application it is just a matter of putting in a list of the server IP address you want to use the other path.

This is a very non standard thing to be doing in a home install so you wouldn't find much in the way of guides. Professional/large corporate installs use a very standard method using routing protocols where there are lots of guides but this is something that can only be done in large companies with lots of money.

 

[Kisianik]

People post the same question days apart and I don't see it, your other post is 6 months ago my memory is not that good

It is unclear what your new goal is. If you go back to that post I put in a solution that allows both connections to live to your pc at the same time.

So if instead of changing the gateway with the route command you get fancy and and put in routes for specific site you can run both.

You could for example send all ip related to one game company to the backup connection and leave everything else run on the primary. For something like torrent I am unsure what options it has. It might have the ability to use multiple destination IP as part of the program. For your more simple application it is just a matter of putting in a list of the server IP address you want to use the other path.

This is a very non standard thing to be doing in a home install so you wouldn't find much in the way of guides. Professional/large corporate installs use a very standard method using routing protocols where there are lots of guides but this is something that can only be done in large companies with lots of money.

Thanks for answering.
I could not post similar question 6 months ago, because I just got Mullvad VPN, and have no prior experience with any VPNs.
Somehow everything works. Mullvad has embedded options for WireGuard and Open VPN, and an Automatic setting. When I tried to setup either WireGuard and OpenVPN by themselves, I got no connection to Internet, but if I use Automatic setting everything works just fine,
My only question now, what is Automatic setting, do I have assigned port on exit server? How can I check my server port?
All security checks passed (DNS leaks etc)

 

[bill001g]

Now I am even more confused.
If your question is purely how do you setup the port forwarding stuff for mullvad that is something you are going to have too look up on their site. This not something most vpn services even offer so there is no consistent way they do it. Some you have to log into their site and set it up others it is built into their client you load on your pc.

What is confusing me is what this has to do with running multiple ISP. You are going to have massive issues running a vpn client and trying to use 2 different ISP connections at the same time. The vpn client itself is modifying the routing table in your PC and unless the VPN client has the option I can't see how you would ever make it switch from one ISP to the other.

 

[Kisianik]

Sorry for confusion.
I have 2 ISPs (fastest one is free as it included into my rent), but connected to the fastest one, which happened to be the least reliable of 2 - dropping service too often. Since I have 2 WI-FI networks at home, I can switch on the fly from one to the other during work. The fastest connection has Asus router, the slow one has Smart RG.
I understand that functionality of particular VPN is best known to the source, but I thought that asking here would not hurt, since the topic us already here, I would not start new one with server port question.

 

[bill001g]

Have you tried searching their web site. This is very hard to say I know one of the ones I looked at and rejected required you load some silly phone app to setup and configure a port....even though you would really only use the concept of port forwarding for a pc. There are also some that give you a fixed IP address so you get all the ports but those tend to be rather expensive.

 

[failboat]

Thanks for answering.
I could not post similar question 6 months ago, because I just got Mullvad VPN, and have no prior experience with any VPNs.
Somehow everything works. Mullvad has embedded options for WireGuard and Open VPN, and an Automatic setting. When I tried to setup either WireGuard and OpenVPN by themselves, I got no connection to Internet, but if I use Automatic setting everything works just fine,
My only question now, what is Automatic setting, do I have assigned port on exit server? How can I check my server port?
All security checks passed (DNS leaks etc)

dns and routes push down from the server side config in openvpn. im not as familiar with wg. on the automagically working setup it's likely just adding 0.0.0.0/0 route at the top of your routing table to make everything go through the vpn and changing your dns to their server. you can connect with their client and verify this in your routing table and dns entry. if you have access to the client side configs you see there's no rules for it too which means it's pushing from server.

when you configure your own vpn client you may have to change settings yourself. this is a feature that many 3p providers dont offer or support because a lot of people just need the client with the 1 click connect button. i prefer a dedicated server for it. there's only a few ways to make sure intended traffic goes into the vpn and most of the clients can't do it as there is no way to separate traffic at the kernel level. being able to use a config file yourself lets you run off any client you want. theres some docker containers that let you just input your creds and it can work with a proper kill switch. paid vpns frequently drop. the docker ones only assign the vpn interface to the container so any traffic generated in the container goes to the vpn interface. this is nearly impossible to do at the routing table on the same client otherwise. alternatively you can use a dedicated vpn client and use forwarding. you can control the firewall and routing when the traffic is using the forwarding rules. both wg and ovpn can run a bash file when up and down. you start with forwarding blocked, vpn brings forwarding on, vpn down blocks forwarding.

the reason this is important is because on 3p vpn they don't release the CIDR in their control or they would just get blacklisted. so there is no practical way to whitelist a reconnect to the vpn. so you need separation in order to properly kill switch.

tldr manual setup is a big plus if you're willing to put in the time to set it up. can kill switch properly and also run on a much wider range of clients.