using dd-wrt on wrt54g for vpn

[en1gma]

can anyone tell me how i might set up dd-wrt on a wrt54g using its built it pptp client to connect to purevpn?

I have one connected to my home lan expressly for this purpose, in order to serve a few devices that need to connect via a vpn to the UK and US.

i found instruction on strongvpn for their service but am not able to post the URL on this forum until I have 10 posts apparently!

thanks

[en1gma]

further to this, here is my setup:

I have a DSL connections with a router (wrt54G running tomato) acting as my primary router. The lan side interface is 192.168.1.1

there are a number of devices on this lan

I also have another router (wrt54G running dd-wrt) connected via the switch ports to this same lan (NOT using the WAN port on router 2... it is disabled)

So, all devices connected to switch ports on either router will be on a switched network and all will receive a 192.168.1.x address from router 1

on router 2 I have enabled pptp and wish to have that connect to the UK via purevpn so that I can use my Xbox (running XBMC) to access UK content

I have seen that this configuration is working on other VPN providers. I would appear that one would jsut need to configure the devices that wnat UK access to use the second router as their default gateway (192.168.1.2 instead of 1.1)

theoretically this allows devices on the same physical lan to be easily configured to use either my local ip address or tunnelled to the UK.

at the moment i seem to have the VPN connecting (no encryption?) but am not able to get it to pick up the traffic and forward it out the VPN connection by default.

anyone got something liek this working?

[en1gma]

in answer to my own question (in hope that it may help someone else)

I did get this working simply by using the standard account information for a pptp vpn and using the network address of the default route found when i ran ipconfig /all at a command line.

once the pptp connection was up i told dd-wrt to change the default route to using the ppp0 connection (the vpn)

here are the commands (I did it via telnet, but it also works via the gui)

route add -host 78.129.202.33 gw 192.168.1.1
route del default
route add default dev ppp0


(for host use address of vpn gateway... various depending on the geography you are trying to reach)


now i just have to tell any machine that wants to use the vpn connection to use the router with the vpn connection as its default gateway.

it works fine from both an xp machine and xbox

[mmarvin]

can you tell me exactly what you entered in the vpn client boxes?

is router 2 really connected switch to switch and not through the wan port?

[en1gma]

sure, under the pptp tab (under services) I enabled the pptp client and entered the following

server ip 78.129.202.33 (for the uk vpn... i've not yet set up the us one)
remote subnet 192.168.108.30
netmask 255.255.255.0
mppe encryption : empty (I don;t need encryption for my needs here )

MTU/MRU default at 1450
NAT enable

username and password per your own purevpn account

the only tricky bit so far was figuring out the subnet on the other side of the vpn server, but that is available from a telnet session into the box, or more easily by looking at the IP address you get with a vpn client on a PC/Mac/Linux box

have a look at the strongvpn link as it seems pretty good and is where I started.

ideally i want to figure out how to use the SES button on the router to run a script to switch between 2 VPN's and a directly routed solution.


hope that helps

[mmarvin]

No help at all. It simply does not work. Goodbye PureVPN

[en1gma]

purvpn works fine for me (on a router, a linux machine and an XP box.. have not tried a mac )

.... but you do need to tell dd-wrt to set up the default route and pass all the traffic via the vpn (in windows that happens automatically when you open a vpn in order to make it easier for users... a router assumes less)

to do that i set up a script that runs on boot. it looks like this

route add -host 78.129.202.33 gw 192.168.1.1
route del default
route add default dev ppp0

in my setup, this adds an entry that makes sure that the router has a route to the VPN host via my internet connection (another router at 192.168.1.1)
then it removes the old default route and tells the router to send all traffic that comes via this router to the VPN

then all i need to do is configure device to use my second router (at 192.168.1.2) as the default route

hope that helps (and if someone else reading this has better advice or methods, please help out... I'm no expert)

[mmarvin]

is the 2nd router connected parallel (switched)?

[en1gma]

the second router is simply switched on my home lan.

the WAN port on router 2 is not connected at all (although if i need the port on the lan I think i can use it simply as a switch port using the vlan settings)

so all devices are on one switched network and the second router just sits on that network as 192.168.1.2

i then jsut tell any device that i wnat to use the VPN to use 192.168.1.2 as its default gateway instead of 192.168.1.1 and the data will then travel through the vpn via router 2

sorry if i am not explaining this well

[mmarvin]

So in windows, where do I tell it to use router 2?