VPN Clients only showing two instances.

[The Voice Over]

Guys,

Thank you all for possible support and for reading through these various messages to help some of us out. For starters, I am a pretty sick person (crazy amounts of chemo and also MS) so I am pretty forgetful and have troubles getting things working on my own anymore but exhaust what resources and abilities I have before I look for help.

My problem is I can't add more than two instances for VPN client to my RT-AC3200 w/ 380.68 (prev and .2 now) This is a problem to me as I would like to add up to five as I am sure this firmware is supposed to support. When I click the pulldown bar over instance, it only show client 1 and client 2. Is there something completley stupid I am missing or overlooking??

I can say I feel I have tried everything I possible could (including searching the net for the title of the post ) and manually trying to add vpn client folders within /etc/openvpn , etc... I have also ran factory defaults just for grins, hoping that cleared NVM and any possible leftovers from my original Asus firmware.

Thanks for the time!

Respectfully.
TVO

 

[Jack Yaz]

Guys,

Thank you all for possible support and for reading through these various messages to help some of us out. For starters, I am a pretty sick person (crazy amounts of chemo and also MS) so I am pretty forgetful and have troubles getting things working on my own anymore but exhaust what resources and abilities I have before I look for help.

My problem is I can't add more than two instances for VPN client to my RT-AC3200 w/ 380.68 (prev and .2 now) This is a problem to me as I would like to add up to five as I am sure this firmware is supposed to support. When I click the pulldown bar over instance, it only show client 1 and client 2. Is there something completley stupid I am missing or overlooking??

I can say I feel I have tried everything I possible could (including searching the net for the title of the post ) and manually trying to add vpn client folders within /etc/openvpn , etc... I have also ran factory defaults just for grins, hoping that cleared NVM and any possible leftovers from my original Asus firmware.

Thanks for the time!

Respectfully.
TVO

That model has too low nvram to support more than 2. I believe Merlin restricted this a couple of versions back.

380.67 (16-July-2017)
- CHANGED: Limited number of supported OpenVPN clients to 2 on
the RT-AC3200, to save on nvram.

 

[The Voice Over]

That model has too low nvram to support more than 2. I believe Merlin restricted this a couple of versions back.

380.67 (16-July-2017)
- CHANGED: Limited number of supported OpenVPN clients to 2 on
the RT-AC3200, to save on nvram.

Thanks for the update, weird as Asus version supported this, always something I don't look into fully, thought I had all bases covered this time. I am pretty bummed as this is all I really use this router for. Thanks again for the quick reply, enjoy...

 

[Jack Yaz]

Thanks for the update, weird as Asus version supported this, always something I don't look into fully, thought I had all bases covered this time. I am pretty bummed as this is all I really use this router for. Thanks again for the quick reply, enjoy...

Asus don't care if your router crashes/reboots due to nvram storage being full...Merlin does.

You can always revert, and forego benefits newer versions bring, revert to stock and accept the potential for reboots/crashes, or buy a router that has more nvram available.

 

[RMerlin]

Or wait for Asus to release an upgraded bootloader that will increase the nvram space to 128 KB on the RT-AC3200. I saw traces of it in recent 382 code.

 

[dikkiedirk]

What router is powerfull enough to be configured as a VPN client through NordVPN, so all my traffic runs through a VPN? Traffic also included downloading with torrents and SANBZB.

 

[CaptainSTX]

What router is powerfull enough to be configured as a VPN client through NordVPN, so all my traffic runs through a VPN? Traffic also included downloading with torrents and SANBZB.

It depends on what download speed you want/need. With a N66 you should get download speeds of 15 - 20 Mbps because it has 600 Mhz processor. With an AC1900P has a 1400 Mhz processor you might get 60 - 70 Mbps downloads.

Using a I7 processor on a custom built device running OpenWRTwith 1.8 Ghz processor and that has Turbo Boost I can get 130 - 140 Mbps.

Since VPN processing is processor intensive if you are using parental controls, QOS in addition to the VPN client expect further slowdowns. Also adjusting the level of encryption my effect your speeds.

Lots of other variables that are not directly in your control to take into consideration including distance from the VPN server and how much bandwidth your VPN provider has and will make availability, the hardware your VPN provider is using and how heavily they load their servers.

The simple solution is the faster the processor the faster your VPN.

 

[dikkiedirk]

It depends on what download speed you want/need. With a N66 you should get download speeds of 15 - 20 Mbps because it has 600 Mhz processor. With an AC1900P has a 1400 Mhz processor you might get 60 - 70 Mbps downloads.

Using a I7 processor on a custom built device running OpenWRTwith 1.8 Ghz processor and that has Turbo Boost I can get 130 - 140 Mbps.

Since VPN processing is processor intensive if you are using parental controls, QOS in addition to the VPN client expect further slowdowns. Also adjusting the level of encryption my effect your speeds.

Lots of other variables that are not directly in your control to take into consideration including distance from the VPN server and how much bandwidth your VPN provider has and will make availability, the hardware your VPN provider is using and how heavily they load their servers.

The simple solution is the faster the processor the faster your VPN.

So it is probably better to install the VPN client on separate devices? BTW I have an Asus RT-AC3200 router.

 

[CaptainSTX]

So it is probably better to install the VPN client on separate devices? BTW I have an Asus RT-AC3200 router.

If you are running on a PC or tablet with a fast processor yes. Other devices it might be a toss up and certain devices such as video streaming device, network camera, etc. don't support running a VPN on them directly.

The other issue is that some VPN providers will only let you connect one device at a time on their basic plan and if you pay extra for a plan that allows you to connect multiple devices they typically limit you to a maximum five devices at any one time. A router regardless of how many devices you connect to it, is only seen by your VPN provider as a single device.

 

[dikkiedirk]

Will the RT-AC3200 suffice, or do I need a better one? What VPN Service with good speed do you recommend? I only have 50 Mbit internet.

 

[john9527]

One thing to watch out for.....my ISP has apparently started traffic shaping on OpenVPN UDP, limiting the bandwidth. I switched to TCP which runs on a non-standard port and almost got back to where I had been in the past (understandable for some loss with the higher overhead of TCP). BTW....I also downleveled code to where I had done previous measurements and see the speed loss there as well, so it's not a code/config issue.

So, it may be a mute point on how fast your router can go.

 

[CaptainSTX]

Will the RT-AC3200 suffice, or do I need a better one? What VPN Service with good speed do you recommend? I only have 50 Mbit internet.

It is adequate. With its 1 Ghz processor so with your ISP connection speed you should get 30 - 35 Mbps downloads when running a VPN connecting to a server within 500 miles. If you run other processor intensive applications then you will further slow things down.

I have used both Astrill and StrongVPN. They each have their own advantages. Speeds very similar.

 

[menthex]

Hi there, in case you're still looking for a solution, the new alpha release of 384.3 Merlin firmware for RT-AC3200 allows for up to 5 concurrent VPN client connections.
The alpha pre-release can be downloaded here https://asuswrt.lostrealm.ca/test-builds
Reference to https://www.snbforums.com/threads/preview-asuswrt-merlin-384-3-pre-release-test-builds.44060/

 

[The Voice Over]

Hi there, in case you're still looking for a solution, the new alpha release of 384.3 Merlin firmware for RT-AC3200 allows for up to 5 concurrent VPN client connections.
The alpha pre-release can be downloaded here https://asuswrt.lostrealm.ca/test-builds
Reference to https://www.snbforums.com/threads/preview-asuswrt-merlin-384-3-pre-release-test-builds.44060/

Perfect! Thanks for this update..