Greeting SNBers,
Thanks to Merlin 384,18, I was successful at configuring my 1st VPN!
I was able to create one client, which pointed to my VPN profile of choice.
I was able assign it my own policy rules for selective behaviour.
Plus my assigned name/description for it began to appear as the top option in the Client selection drop-down menu!
I love it!
BUT...
after testing the performance for a few days, I wanted to add 4 more profiles that my provider offered. Unfortunately that hasn't worked.
For this next client, I simply duplicated Client 1's successful settings, and uploaded a different .ovpn.
But then when I clicked "Apply", the progress indicator whirled for a second and quit.
The profile info instantly disappeared from where it was entered ( "Import .ovpn file").
And it didn't show up on the option "Service state", like the first one had.
Plus, my Username and Password disappeared.
Configuration for Client 2 failed and I don't know what I did wrong.
This behavior is frustratingly familiar to me, because the same thing happened while configuring Client 1.
I had prepared by reading Eric's document "Configuring OpenVPN", which advised clicking "Yes" on "Enable JFFS custom scripts and configs".
But I found that after doing that, I couldn't get my settings to "Apply".
So I next tried enabling "Format JFFS partition at next boot", and then rebooted.
That worked. After that, my settings got saved when I hit "Apply". And the VPN connected successfully!
I'm still quite naive about how JFFS and VPN client functionality are programmed to work together.
So here are my questions. I'd be happy if someone could answer... or point me to something educational:
Q1) Is the JFFS partition programmed to act like "write-once, read-many" or is this behavior I'm seeing abnormal?
In other words, do I need to initialize/enable JFFS, then in one session configure ALL of the clients that I'll be using, then commit them all to storage at the same time?
Q2) I jumped on board with Merlin toward the end of v384.17, without looking at any change docs. I then upgraded to v384.18 right before messing with VPN. In discovering & reading the change doc, I came to understand that I was supposed to do a "factory reset" after installing 384.17. That's quite un-intuiticve for me. And I've seen some discussion about the concept of "dirty upgrades" elsewhere. So was my latest upgrade "dirty", and is it possibly the cause of the behavior I'm experiencing?
Q3) Just as a general question, I'm wondering why the router's NVRAM isn't adequte for storing these VPN settings. Is using the JFFS2 partition a workaround to store Merlin's multiple VPN client functionality?
Q4) How do I go forward with my 5-client setup?
Thanks so much Merlin wizards!
Thanks to Merlin 384,18, I was successful at configuring my 1st VPN!
I was able to create one client, which pointed to my VPN profile of choice.
I was able assign it my own policy rules for selective behaviour.
Plus my assigned name/description for it began to appear as the top option in the Client selection drop-down menu!
I love it!
BUT...
after testing the performance for a few days, I wanted to add 4 more profiles that my provider offered. Unfortunately that hasn't worked.
For this next client, I simply duplicated Client 1's successful settings, and uploaded a different .ovpn.
But then when I clicked "Apply", the progress indicator whirled for a second and quit.
The profile info instantly disappeared from where it was entered ( "Import .ovpn file").
And it didn't show up on the option "Service state", like the first one had.
Plus, my Username and Password disappeared.
Configuration for Client 2 failed and I don't know what I did wrong.
This behavior is frustratingly familiar to me, because the same thing happened while configuring Client 1.
I had prepared by reading Eric's document "Configuring OpenVPN", which advised clicking "Yes" on "Enable JFFS custom scripts and configs".
But I found that after doing that, I couldn't get my settings to "Apply".
So I next tried enabling "Format JFFS partition at next boot", and then rebooted.
That worked. After that, my settings got saved when I hit "Apply". And the VPN connected successfully!
I'm still quite naive about how JFFS and VPN client functionality are programmed to work together.
So here are my questions. I'd be happy if someone could answer... or point me to something educational:
Q1) Is the JFFS partition programmed to act like "write-once, read-many" or is this behavior I'm seeing abnormal?
In other words, do I need to initialize/enable JFFS, then in one session configure ALL of the clients that I'll be using, then commit them all to storage at the same time?
Q2) I jumped on board with Merlin toward the end of v384.17, without looking at any change docs. I then upgraded to v384.18 right before messing with VPN. In discovering & reading the change doc, I came to understand that I was supposed to do a "factory reset" after installing 384.17. That's quite un-intuiticve for me. And I've seen some discussion about the concept of "dirty upgrades" elsewhere. So was my latest upgrade "dirty", and is it possibly the cause of the behavior I'm experiencing?
Q3) Just as a general question, I'm wondering why the router's NVRAM isn't adequte for storing these VPN settings. Is using the JFFS2 partition a workaround to store Merlin's multiple VPN client functionality?
Q4) How do I go forward with my 5-client setup?
Thanks so much Merlin wizards!