GT-AC5300 + China + VPN

[IKE99]

Good afternoon or good morning (depending where you are living )

I am (until now) a happy new owner of ASUS GT-AC5300 and as you may understood ... I am living in China.
I have Astrill VPN and I am wondering how I can setup my router with it.
I know that unfortunately DD-WRT and Merlin are not compatible with this router (I should have check before, but I have been pushed by my chidren to by this router for ... gaming) and will be probably not.
Anyway, I would like to know if there is/are solution to my demand.

Thanks for your support

Vincent (IKE99)

 

[Xentrk]

Good afternoon or good morning (depending where you are living )

I am (until now) a happy new owner of ASUS GT-AC5300 and as you may understood ... I am living in China.
I have Astrill VPN and I am wondering how I can setup my router with it.
I know that unfortunately DD-WRT and Merlin are not compatible with this router (I should have check before, but I have been pushed by my chidren to by this router for ... gaming) and will be probably not.
Anyway, I would like to know if there is/are solution to my demand.

Thanks for your support

Vincent (IKE99)

I had a couple of layovers in a Chinese airport recently which gave me a chance to try TorGuard Stealth encryption option and can confirm it worked and could bypass the Great FW of China. https://x3mtek.com/why-i-use-torguard-as-my-vpn-provider/

I tried other encryption options and those were all blocked. I used the TG Windows Client app and the option is a drop down selection. TG support should be able to tell you how to configure on the router. In fact, I will contact them myself to get the info and document it in a blog post. I will pass on the info. Stay tuned.

 

[IKE99]

Thanks Xentrk
I will have a look and I will stay tuned
Thanks a lot for your help

(Thailand, is such a beautiful country with such nice people. I use to go there for more than 25 years ... )

 

[Xentrk]

You're welcome. I am in contact with their support team. I'll let you know what I find out. I have a friend in China who has a similar requirement and want to get it working for both of you.

Yes, very nice here in the Land of Smiles. I live in the north. I moved here over two years ago and don't plan on leaving. I love it here. I had to travel to USA recently and it felt strange.

 

[Xentrk]

Thanks Xentrk
I will have a look and I will stay tuned

TG support told me that the Stealth mode feature for routers is only supported on DD-WRT firmware versions r24xx to r29xx. They gave me some additional information that I passed onto @RMerlin on the hack that is required to make it work on a router to see if it is something he could incorporate in a future release. However, even if it was, AsusWRT-Merlin is not supported for your router model.

 

[IKE99]

Thanks
Unfortunatley, it is what I have in mind, no solution for the moment and probably for ever as we will not have DD-WRT or Merlin for this router

 

[Xentrk]

Perhaps an option is to get a router that supports DD-WRT and set it up as your primary router running the VPN on it. Then, connect your Asus AC5300 to it via LAN to WAN or LAN to LAN.

 

[IKE99]

Yes it is one of the solution I am thinking to
But it is a little bit sade to spend what I spent for my GT-AC5300
Before taking this option, I want to investigate more.
For example, Firmaware of RT-AC5300 is it or not compatible with GT ? Even if I loose some option

 

[IKE99]

Any router to propose (good price & good performance for my goal) ?

 

[Xentrk]

@RMerlin is recommending the new tls-crypt feature of OpenVPN 2.4.5 rather than using the hack DD-WRT came up with to bypass the GFW. TorGuard told me they are working on this. I will monitor progress and update you if I hear of anything.