Using asus router as passthrough vpn gateway

[ryarber]

I moved my home networking to a Unifi dream machine with a few access points. I'm trying to configure NordVPN at the router level to cover the whole house. Currently, the Unifi Dream Machine does not have the ability to establish an OpenVPN tunnel to Nord. I was thinking about using an old ASUS router between the fiber modem and the UDM. I'd want it to put all traffic through the tunnel. But I'd also want to update my NO-IP dynamic dns address (the ASUS router can handle this) as well as pass through any inbound traffic through pinholes or an inbound VPN connection.

Has anyone done anyting like this? Are there any considerations I need to take into account?

 

[Tech9]

What model Asus router and what is the ISP connection speed?

 

[ryarber]

I’ll have to look at the boneyard to see what I have. Either an RT-66 or 68 or maybe a netgear nighthawk. 1000 mbps

 

[Tech9]

The OpenVPN speeds you can expect:

RT-N(AC)66 - up to 15Mbps
RT-AC68U - up to 50Mbps

 

[ryarber]

Ugh. That’s inadequate. Do you know of a machine that will do this better?

 

[L&LD]

RT-AC86U, RT-AX68U, RT-AX86U will do up to ~250Mbps, depending on the options (within OpenVPN), chosen.

 

[Tech9]

Do you know of a machine that will do this better?

For OpenVPN and Gigabit ISP - nothing in consumer routers category. You need x86 hardware firewall. The other option is Wireguard, if supported by the VPN provider + a new model router with Wireguard options. In general, I do not recommend network wide VPN for various reasons. You are not the first one with this idea. Most get the hardware and a month later drop the idea due to inconvenience.