Internet connectivity/DNS goes down intermittently on VPN

[Viktor Jaep]

Hi All,

I'm not sure where to start... but I have been having what seems to be intermittent DNS/Internet connectivity issues for my wifi/wired clients who are all going over a VPN tunnel using ExpressVPN. This started happening since upgrading to 384.10-2, and continues with 384.11. I'm not running any other 3rd party apps other than Skynet.

Sometimes everything seems to be humming along fine for hours and only see Skynet doing it's normal blocking... but then, things get hairy, go down, and my logs are filled with items like I've included below. I've been combing over these logs to pinpoint what the issue seems to be, but I'm not seeing anything that sticks out.

Other than starting fresh and doing a complete reset, does anyone have any suggestions? I have done the recommended settings changes like turning off Explicit/Universal Beamforming, MU-MIMO, etc. I've also downloaded a new VPN config from ExpressVPN incase something was wrong with those settings, or that server... and have it pointing at a whole new server. But no dice. Any help is appreciated...

Log snippet below... I believe from directly after I applied 384.11... Since I can't paste a bunch of logs, I have included a txt attachment with more.


May 9 10:58:48 ovpn-client2[4518]: NOTE: Pulled options changed on restart, will need to close and reopen TUN/TAP device.
May 9 10:58:48 ovpn-client2[4518]: vpnrouting.sh tun12 1500 1557 10.130.0.38 10.130.0.37 init
May 9 10:58:48 openvpn-routing: Configuring policy rules for client 2
May 9 10:58:48 ovpn-client2[4518]: /usr/sbin/ip route del 10.130.0.1/32
May 9 10:58:48 ovpn-client2[4518]: ERROR: Linux route delete command failed: external program exited with error status: 2
May 9 10:58:48 ovpn-client2[4518]: /usr/sbin/ip route del 104.238.59.87/32
May 9 10:58:48 ovpn-client2[4518]: /usr/sbin/ip route del 0.0.0.0/1
May 9 10:58:48 ovpn-client2[4518]: ERROR: Linux route delete command failed: external program exited with error status: 2
May 9 10:58:48 ovpn-client2[4518]: /usr/sbin/ip route del 128.0.0.0/1
May 9 10:58:48 ovpn-client2[4518]: ERROR: Linux route delete command failed: external program exited with error status: 2
May 9 10:58:48 ovpn-client2[4518]: Closing TUN/TAP interface
May 9 10:58:48 ovpn-client2[4518]: /usr/sbin/ip addr del dev tun12 local 10.130.0.38 peer 10.130.0.37
May 9 10:58:48 ovpn-client2[4518]: updown.sh tun12 1500 1557 10.130.0.38 10.130.0.37 init
May 9 10:58:49 rc_service: service 11369:notify_rc updateresolv
May 9 10:58:50 ovpn-client2[4518]: TUN/TAP device tun12 opened
May 9 10:58:50 ovpn-client2[4518]: TUN/TAP TX queue length set to 1000
May 9 10:58:50 ovpn-client2[4518]: /usr/sbin/ip link set dev tun12 up mtu 1500
May 9 10:58:50 ovpn-client2[4518]: /usr/sbin/ip addr add dev tun12 local 10.87.0.42 peer 10.87.0.41
May 9 10:58:50 ovpn-client2[4518]: updown.sh tun12 1500 1557 10.87.0.42 10.87.0.41 init
May 9 10:58:51 openvpn-updown: Forcing 192.168.1.0/24 to use DNS server 10.87.0.1
May 9 10:58:51 openvpn-updown: Excluding 192.168.1.11 from forced DNS routing
May 9 10:58:51 openvpn-updown: Excluding 192.168.1.67 from forced DNS routing
May 9 10:58:51 openvpn-updown: Excluding 192.168.1.73 from forced DNS routing
May 9 10:58:51 openvpn-updown: Excluding 192.168.1.57 from forced DNS routing
May 9 10:58:51 openvpn-updown: Excluding 192.168.1.90 from forced DNS routing
May 9 10:58:51 openvpn-updown: Excluding 192.168.1.84 from forced DNS routing
May 9 10:58:51 openvpn-updown: Excluding 192.168.1.85 from forced DNS routing
May 9 10:58:51 openvpn-updown: Excluding 192.168.1.145 from forced DNS routing
May 9 10:58:52 rc_service: service 11616:notify_rc updateresolv
May 9 10:58:54 ovpn-client2[4518]: /usr/sbin/ip route add 104.238.59.10/32 via 73.118.80.1
May 9 10:58:54 ovpn-client2[4518]: /usr/sbin/ip route add 0.0.0.0/1 via 10.87.0.41
May 9 10:58:54 ovpn-client2[4518]: /usr/sbin/ip route add 128.0.0.0/1 via 10.87.0.41
May 9 10:58:54 ovpn-client2[4518]: /usr/sbin/ip route add 10.87.0.1/32 via 10.87.0.41
May 9 10:58:55 openvpn-routing: Configuring policy rules for client 2
May 9 10:58:55 ovpn-client2[4518]: Initialization Sequence Completed
May 9 11:01:44 nat: apply redirect rules
May 9 11:01:50 WAN_Connection: ISP's DHCP did not function properly.
May 9 11:01:50 DualWAN: skip single wan wan_led_control - WANRED off
May 9 11:02:09 WAN_Connection: WAN was restored.
May 9 11:02:09 nat: apply nat rules (/tmp/nat_rules_eth0_eth0)
May 9 11:10:44 nat: apply redirect rules
May 9 11:10:48 WAN_Connection: ISP's DHCP did not function properly.
May 9 11:10:48 DualWAN: skip single wan wan_led_control - WANRED off
May 9 11:11:47 ovpn-client2[4518]: [Server-2659-1a] Inactivity timeout (--ping-restart), restarting
May 9 11:11:47 ovpn-client2[4518]: SIGUSR1[soft,ping-restart] received, process restarting
May 9 11:11:47 ovpn-client2[4518]: Restart pause, 5 second(s)
May 9 11:11:52 ovpn-client2[4518]: NOTE: the current --script-security setting may allow this configuration to call user-defined scripts
May 9 11:11:52 ovpn-client2[4518]: TCP/UDP: Preserving recently used remote address: [AF_INET]104.238.59.10:1195
May 9 11:11:52 ovpn-client2[4518]: Socket Buffers: R=[122880->245760] S=[122880->245760]
May 9 11:11:52 ovpn-client2[4518]: UDP link local: (not bound)
May 9 11:11:52 ovpn-client2[4518]: UDP link remote: [AF_INET]104.238.59.10:1195
May 9 11:12:52 ovpn-client2[4518]: [UNDEF] Inactivity timeout (--ping-restart), restarting
May 9 11:12:52 ovpn-client2[4518]: SIGUSR1[soft,ping-restart] received, process restarting
May 9 11:12:52 ovpn-client2[4518]: Restart pause, 5 second(s)
May 9 11:12:57 ovpn-client2[4518]: NOTE: the current --script-security setting may allow this configuration to call user-defined scripts
May 9 11:12:57 ovpn-client2[4518]: TCP/UDP: Preserving recently used remote address: [AF_INET]104.238.59.3:1195
May 9 11:12:57 ovpn-client2[4518]: Socket Buffers: R=[122880->245760] S=[122880->245760]
May 9 11:12:57 ovpn-client2[4518]: UDP link local: (not bound)
May 9 11:12:57 ovpn-client2[4518]: UDP link remote: [AF_INET]104.238.59.3:1195
May 9 11:13:57 ovpn-client2[4518]: [UNDEF] Inactivity timeout (--ping-restart), restarting
May 9 11:13:57 ovpn-client2[4518]: SIGUSR1[soft,ping-restart] received, process restarting
May 9 11:13:57 ovpn-client2[4518]: Restart pause, 5 second(s)
May 9 11:14:02 ovpn-client2[4518]: NOTE: the current --script-security setting may allow this configuration to call user-defined scripts
May 9 11:14:32 ovpn-client2[4518]: RESOLVE: Cannot resolve host address: usa-miami-2-ca-version-2.expressnetw.com:1195 (Name or service not known)
May 9 11:15:02 ovpn-client2[4518]: RESOLVE: Cannot resolve host address: usa-miami-2-ca-version-2.expressnetw.com:1195 (Name or service not known)
May 9 11:15:02 ovpn-client2[4518]: Could not determine IPv4/IPv6 protocol
May 9 11:15:02 ovpn-client2[4518]: SIGUSR1[soft,init_instance] received, process restarting
May 9 11:15:02 ovpn-client2[4518]: Restart pause, 5 second(s)
May 9 11:15:07 ovpn-client2[4518]: NOTE: the current --script-security setting may allow this configuration to call user-defined scripts
May 9 11:15:31 WAN_Connection: WAN was restored.
May 9 11:15:31 nat: apply nat rules (/tmp/nat_rules_eth0_eth0)
May 9 11:15:32 ovpn-client2[4518]: TCP/UDP: Preserving recently used remote address: [AF_INET]104.238.59.87:1195

Thank you.

 

[ColinTaylor]

From your attached log file it looks like the WAN connection is dropping out. So I don't think this is anything to do with DNS or VPN.

May  5 01:05:17 WAN_Connection: ISP's DHCP did not function properly.
May  5 01:05:28 WAN_Connection: WAN was restored.
May  5 01:05:28 WAN_Connection: WAN was restored.
May  9 10:53:19 WAN_Connection: ISP's DHCP did not function properly.
May  9 10:58:39 WAN_Connection: WAN was restored.
May  9 10:58:39 WAN_Connection: WAN was restored.
May  9 11:01:50 WAN_Connection: ISP's DHCP did not function properly.
May  9 11:02:09 WAN_Connection: WAN was restored.
May  9 11:02:09 WAN_Connection: WAN was restored.
May  9 11:10:48 WAN_Connection: ISP's DHCP did not function properly.
May  9 11:15:31 WAN_Connection: WAN was restored.
May  9 11:15:31 WAN_Connection: WAN was restored.
May  9 11:17:23 WAN_Connection: ISP's DHCP did not function properly.
May  9 11:17:33 WAN_Connection: WAN was restored.
May  9 11:17:33 WAN_Connection: WAN was restored.
May  9 12:01:23 WAN_Connection: ISP's DHCP did not function properly.
May  9 12:06:29 WAN_Connection: WAN was restored.
May  9 12:06:29 WAN_Connection: WAN was restored.
May  9 12:08:06 WAN_Connection: ISP's DHCP did not function properly.
May  9 12:08:13 WAN_Connection: Ethernet link down.
May  5 01:05:17 WAN_Connection: ISP's DHCP did not function properly.
May  5 01:06:46 WAN_Connection: Ethernet link down.
May  5 01:07:10 WAN_Connection: Ethernet link up.
May  5 01:07:19 WAN_Connection: ISP's DHCP did not function properly.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

From your attached log file it looks like the WAN connection is dropping out. So I don't think this is anything to do with DNS or VPN.

Thanks... You were probably right. I went in and did some serious resetting of DNS settings and moved it over to start using Cloudfare... I haven't had a problem since. Wasn't sure if my VPN provider was the cause of all this, or the actual ISP... things seem to be stable now. Thanks for the help!