Asuswrt with OpenVPN where to start?

[janedough]

I've been using OpenVPN for years, but admittedly, one of the reasons is that its so freaking easy to use. I would love to have it set up on this router, but I just can't get past the intricacies of the instructions. I'm not a networking person, so a lot of this is new to me. I'm usually great with following directions, but not this time it seems.

Am I missing something, or can I not use symbols in the VPN password field? I mean I guess that's a dumb question since every time I try to do it I get a message saying its not allowed. Is this for real? So lets say I do change my password to something way less secure and then start again. Am I just messing with the WAN, VPN and DHCP tabs? I've read every thread I could find and I just feel like I'm missing something. If there's a step by step tutorial out there (other than the outdated one on the ASUS website) I haven't found it yet. If you'd like to make an idiot out of me and point me in the right direction I would be very grateful. I know that when I "get it" I'm going to feel really stupid. But at that point I won't care, because my VPN will work.

Thanks a million for reading this rant.

 

[RMerlin]

Are you talking about OpenVPN or PPTP? Cause the original Asus firmware only supports PPTP, so you won't find any OpenVPN instructions on their site. Plus OpenVPN is usually certificate-based, not password-based.

 

[janedough]

Ah yes. Hadn't thought of that. I use OpenVPN on my laptop and I hadn't even thought about that. I guess I need to change that first and then go from there? But after doing that do I still need to address the password issue?

Thanks!!

 

[RMerlin]

Ah yes. Hadn't thought of that. I use OpenVPN on my laptop and I hadn't even thought about that. I guess I need to change that first and then go from there? But after doing that do I still need to address the password issue?

Thanks!!

Asus does restrict the use of some non-alphanumerical characters, probably because some of these cannot be safely escaped in the webui. You will have to restrict your password to the supported characters. I don't remember the list of supported characters, as it has changed between FW versions.

This doesn't really impact security, just so as long the password is long enough, and isn't dictionnary-based. Using, for example, a "-" instead of "$" inside a password doesn't really make it less secure. If you keep it random, it'll be just as secure.

 

[kfmfe04]

You have two choices:

1. Use the built-in firmware. That means you have to find a PPTP client that works. I've used with one built into OSX (Under System Preferences... Network, etc...) without problems. This is the easier choice as all you have to do is specify your password correctly on the router.

2. Use asuswrt-merlin with OpenVPN - you download the firmware and then upload it into the router like any other ASUS update (with possible resets depending on how many versions you skip). With OpenVPN, you need to copy-paste all those OpenVPN keys into the router. This took me a day to set up, but also works great with the TunnelBlick OpenVPN client on OSX. This method may not be that much harder if you have all your OpenVPN keys already, but there are definitely more steps involved (hence, more room for error).

Either way, you must match up the client type with the VPN server type. I managed to get 1. working in about an hour, but RMerlin pointed out that PPTP is inherently not secure.

That's when I made the (successful) effort to do 2.

Whatever you choose, I can confirm that both methods work - I am currently running OpenVPN under asuswrt-merlin 3.0.0.4.354.29.