Asus router/VPN question

[Th3ory]

Hello, I feel this is a silly/foolish question to ask but I am actually getting frustrated with this little issue I have regarding my Asus gt-ax6000 and my nordVPN service.

If I am not connected to my VPN service I have downloaded on my desktop pc and not connected to nordVPN, I can open up my Microsoft edge web browser and navigate to http://router.asus.com and log into my ASUS router. However, if I connect to my nordVPN service and a nordVPN server, then navigate to http://router.asus.com it says I can't open the web page, "

Hmmm… can't reach this page​

router.asus.com’s server IP address could not be found." and can't log into my router. I even attempted to set up VPN fusion on my router, was successful but then could not log back into my router... I had to hard reset my router to factory specs just to log back in... I feel foolish however it's what I am dealing with.

I feel like I am missing something simple and there is an easy fix to this problem, perhaps a different web browser or a setting in the web browser options? Any help would be nice, thank you.

 

[Th3ory]

After trying multiple times to resolve this, its appears, Http://192.168.50.1 will get me to my ASUS router on a browser while on a VPN. What's the difference?

 

[glens]

Just a guess, but "router.asus.com" is redirected within the router to (in this case) "192.168.50.1" and when (here's the guess part) via the VPN that address intercept path is not used.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I feel like I am missing something simple...

Yes. When you are connected to NordVPN you are using their DNS servers instead of the router's DNS server. router.asus.com is a "fake" hostname that only exists in router's DNS. It is not resolvable on public DNS servers.

C:\>nslookup router.asus.com
Server:  RT-AX86U.home.lan
Address:  192.168.1.1

Name:    router.asus.com
Address:  192.168.1.1


C:\>nslookup router.asus.com 8.8.8.8
Server:  dns.google
Address:  8.8.8.8

*** dns.google can't find router.asus.com: Non-existent domain