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    Is is possible to set up pfSense with a VPN provider in this "toggleable" way?

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    • johnpozJ
      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @anallama
      last edited by johnpoz

      @anallama guides from many vpn providers are shit - that is the technical term yes..

      Many of them will say you need to use their dns, and will say you have to route everything through them and change your outbound nat to manual.. All of that is nonsense.. You don't need to do any of that..

      Don't pull routes, don't use their dns, and just set hybrid outbound nat and set a nat to the vpn interface you're using to connect to them.

      They may block trying to use any other dns then theirs through the connection, believe nord was intercepting dns - they prob still are..

      But you sure and the hell do not need to route your dns through them or use theirs if you don't want to - have pfsense just use some dot server if you want your dns encrypted, etc.

      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
      Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
      SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

      anallamaA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
      • anallamaA
        anallama @johnpoz
        last edited by

        @johnpoz said in Is is possible to set up pfSense with a VPN provider in this "toggleable" way?:

        and just set hybrid outbound nat and set a nat to the vpn interface you're using to connect to them.

        Can you direct me to the best place to read up on this part specifically?

        johnpozJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • johnpozJ
          johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @anallama
          last edited by johnpoz

          @anallama already linked to policy routing section.

          Here is example

          nat.jpg

          All of my normal networks are just auto - and nat to my normal wan address.. But I have a special nat, that if I route traffic out my vpn interface (ns1vpn) in my case it will nat to that address.

          Clicky a policy route to send something out my vpn - it does so, toggle that rule off and now back to normal routing and just going out my normal wan.

          So as example - my normal IP 209.122.x.x out on the internet, then route it out my vpn and I am seen as my vpn exit IP 209.141.x.x.

          vpn.jpg

          An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
          If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
          Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
          SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

          anallamaA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • anallamaA
            anallama @johnpoz
            last edited by anallama

            @johnpoz

            In your last image, the 192.168.9.100 is the pfsense router address? Can I just select "WAN address" generally rather than specifying the exact IP?

            anallamaA johnpozJ 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • anallamaA
              anallama @anallama
              last edited by anallama

              I've got a successful handshake on Wireguard at least (sorry, I'm aware that I've placed this post under OpenVPN, Wireguard setup seems a lot simpler)
              Screenshot from 2025-06-11 13-59-55.png

              I'm not sure what the auto-created rules present on mine but missing from yours do.

              Screenshot from 2025-06-11 13-59-06.png

              As soon as I enable this rule below, my internet connection stops working. Without it enabled, my IP remains listed as my ISP's.

              Screenshot from 2025-06-11 14-26-07.png

              I currently have DoT set up with CIRA servers; I tried setting up the static gateway routing to the VPN endpoint (listed as optional in the documentation), but it did not change that my connection was down. Should I be leaving the default IPv4 gateway as Automatic?

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              • johnpozJ
                johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @anallama
                last edited by

                @anallama no that is the IP address of the PC I wanted to policy route out that specific gateway - why would you think that is a pfsense IP.. How would pfsense IP be inbound source address into its own lan interface?

                An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

                anallamaA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • anallamaA
                  anallama @johnpoz
                  last edited by

                  @johnpoz I'm pretty ignorant of just about everything in networking, that's all I can say

                  johnpozJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • johnpozJ
                    johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @anallama
                    last edited by

                    @anallama hahah - ok that explains it then ;)

                    Your default gateway in pfsense should be set to your your normal wan interface that you use for normal isp connectivity.

                    I use openvpn to connect as client to my vpn server, I haven't used wireguard.

                    An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                    If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                    Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                    SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

                    anallamaA 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • anallamaA
                      anallama @johnpoz
                      last edited by

                      @johnpoz alright I'll try and redo it in OpenVPN, and post my probable failures then 🤤

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • anallamaA
                        anallama @johnpoz
                        last edited by anallama

                        @johnpoz
                        Hey so I actually got this working via OpenVPN for my LAN network on the first try...every device in 192.168.1.0/24 now has the VPN provider's public IP. However, the remote access device connected through my OpenVPN Server (tunnel network 192.168.6.0/24) still has my local IP, even when I add equivalent NAT and firewall rules. What do I need to adjust to also send the remote access device through the VPN client? Do I just assign it an IP on the LAN network range instead?

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