Tutorial: Configuring pfSense as VPN client to Private Internet Access

Colin_Maclaurin

I appreciate your taking the time to cobble together such an thoroughly written tutorial on setting up PIA on pfSense. I struggled with this and found much like yourself that I had to use bits and pieces of several tutorials before I could get the VPN up and running.

This should probably be a sticky to make it easy to find.

Thank you again.

Altis

Much appreciated, thank you for taking the time to do this.
What do you use / recommend using as a DNS server?
Specifically, can I use PIA's DNS servers? Reason to ask is when I do, after some time (a day or two) the system stops internet communication with DNS failure.

divsys

That's a good in depth tutorial, thanks for all your efforts :)

One (very) minor nit, I would suggest that you remove the "verb 5" entry once you have verified that the connection is up and running properly. I use that entry myself when I'm trying to diagnose OpenVPN issues (sometimes I'll even use verb 7 for more info). In the long run I find the log files just get filled with too much excess using 'verb 5' for a stable connection.

It's useful for seeing the initial configuration of your setup, but is a bit excessive in normal operation.

Just my $0.02, thanks for all your work ;D

mpboden

@Altis:

What do you use / recommend using as a DNS server?
Specifically, can I use PIA's DNS servers?

The easiest way that I've found is to go to System->General Setup, and enter the DNS servers that you want to use. It can be Google's or PIA's or any other. But then uncheck: "Allow DNS server list to be overridden by DHCP/PPP on WAN". After saving, a DNS Leak test at www.dnsleaktest.com or ipleak.net, will show the DNS servers you specified.

mpboden

@divsys:

One (very) minor nit, I would suggest that you remove the "verb 5" entry once you have verified that the connection is up and running properly. I use that entry myself when I'm trying to diagnose OpenVPN issues (sometimes I'll even use verb 7 for more info). In the long run I find the log files just get filled with too much excess using 'verb 5' for a stable connection.

Thanks for the tip. Much appreciated.

binaryjay

Hello. I appreciate the tutorial in getting things running with PIA, and I've been able to get all outbound on my network through PIA just fine however that is not what I want.

The thing is, it seems that the tunnel takes over all outbound over the WAN as soon as it is started. That is, when starting the tunnel, if using the automatic NAT rules - I cannot get out to the WAN at all. Once creating the manual rules, you can get out to the WAN but everything is going out to the WAN. I really just wanted to keep the tunnel up but have the LAN continue to go directly to the WAN until I specifically change something to selectively go through the tunnel (such as, only for a specific LAN IP).

What am I missing here in terms of setting things up so at the very least I have this situation as a starting point:

Have the tunnel interface UP
It is not actually used, everything continues to work as it did prior to bringing tunnel up.

Basically, I thought bringing the tunnel up would just be like adding another NIC to the system with no link or further configuration. Clearly I was wrong - I need to disable the tunnel for now as it is just not workable for us to have everything always going through it.

Thanks!

Edit: Well, I've figured out I need the route-nopull client option to keep the vpn server from mangling up my default routes. I just need to figure out the rest now in terms of getting specific IPs traffic all through the tunnel … do I use route options in openvpn or outbound nat or...? Fun stuff...

Edit Again: Okay, had to assign an interface to the tunnel. The tunnel refused to work with route-nopull... so that had to stay. Then I created manual firewall lan rule for specific host to use the VPN gateway and modified the existing LAN to WAN rule placed underneath to use the WAN gateway. Then I needed to create a new rule for the VPN interface just to allow traffic through it. Finally, I added outbound NAT for the host above the auto created rule for the VPN interface.

It all seems rather messy to me, I may very well be doing more than I really need to but it seems to be working. All hosts on the LAN are using the normal WAN except for a specific one that I want always routing through the VPN.

This is much better than the old situation of that host having to open it's own tunnel which was prone to going down during network interruptions, and the other host has a much lower power CPU than my pfSense router so distributing the load of OpenVPN to the router in this case frees up a lot of cycles on that host.

ouldsmobile

@ binaryjay

I think you may be overcomplicated things here. If you follow the tutorial, when finished the tunnel should be routing all traffic due to the firewall rule that was created in the tutorial, you would just need to disable or edit it to only push the traffic you need. It's pretty easy to set up for one host. Just createa new/edit the existing rule with the source being the machine ip that you want to go through the tunnel, and under advanced the VPN interface you have created, usually OPT1. You can do the same using specific destination ports or destination ip ranges if you want to get fancy and only push certain traffic through the tunnel. i.e. for geoblocked services etc.

@ Everyone else

Anyone else have the tunnel go down rather frequently using this service? I am connecting to the US-East server and I find my connection reset rather frequently at times? FWIW my WAN connection very rarely goes down so it's not that. All I see in the logs is the following when it disconnects:

Jun 15 20:31:20 pfsense openvpn[41114]: MANAGEMENT: Client disconnected
Jun 15 20:31:37 pfsense openvpn[41114]: event_wait : Interrupted system call (code=4)

Just wondering if this is normal for PIA? Seems to be happening multiple times daily. I don't recall having this issue when I had PIA openvpn setup on one of my linux boxes but maybe I just wasn't watching it as closely. :-)

Thanks,

Kevin

mpboden

@binaryjay:

the tunnel takes over all outbound over the WAN as soon as it is started.

This tutorial is written so that all LAN traffic is routed through the VPN using the system routing table. So this is to be expected.

If you followed this tutorial exactly, then there are two ways that I know of to accomplish what you want.

This first option is more involved, because it requires editing every firewall rule. This is not really ideal, but I'm outlining it here as an option so that you're aware.

Go to Advanced settings under every firewall rule and assign the WAN interface as your Gateway.
Then create a specific rule for your single computer on the LAN, with the PIAVPN gateway selected.
Move this new rule to the top of the list.
With this setup, all traffic bypasses the system routing table, and the traffic is routed via each rule through a specific gateway.

The second option is much easier.

Add route-nopull to the Advanced Configuration settings of the VPN
Create a firewall rule for the specific computer on the LAN with an Advanced setting that specifically chooses the PIAVPN Gateway.
Move this new rule to the top of the list.

To explain how option 2 works, this is from the OpenVPN manual:


–route-nopull
When used with --client or --pull, accept options pushed by server EXCEPT for routes.

When used on the client, this option effectively bars the server from adding routes to the client's routing table,
however note that this option still allows the server to set the TCP/IP properties of the client's TUN/TAP interface.

So, this tells the client not to pull the default route from the server, yet it pulls all other necessary TCP/IP settings. And if you look at your system routing table (Diagnostics->Routes) before and after changing this setting, you'll see the pulled route present and then not present respectively. It'll be the first line in the table:


0.0.0.0/8 	xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 	UGS 	0 	0 	1500 	ovpnc1 	=>

Therefore, after adding this Advanced Configuration setting, all traffic continues to use the System Routing Table. And with this pulled route removed from the table, the traffic will be routed out the WAN interface instead of the PIAVPN interface based on the remaining rules in the table.

However, the new firewall rule you created for your specific LAN computer will be routed out the VPN interface, because you chose it as the Gateway under Advanced settings within the rule. This specific rule then bypasses the System Routing Table.

mpboden

@ouldsmobile:

If you follow the tutorial, when finished the tunnel should only be routing traffic that you specify using the firwall->lan rules.

This is incorrect. This tutorial configures the firewall to route all traffic out the VPN interface.

@ouldsmobile:

Anyone else have the tunnel go down rather frequently using this service?

All I see in the logs is the following when it disconnects:
Jun 15 20:31:20 pfsense openvpn[41114]: MANAGEMENT: Client disconnected
Jun 15 20:31:37 pfsense openvpn[41114]: event_wait : Interrupted system call (code=4)
Just wondering if this is normal for PIA?

I don't experience this at all. I've used several of PIA's server, but not specifically the US-East server.

ouldsmobile

@mpboden:

This is incorrect. This tutorial configures the firewall to route all traffic out the VPN interface.

Woops, sorry I followed a couple tutorials when I set mine up, just came across yours after setting mine up, must have gotten them confused. I will edit my post.

@mpboden:

I don't experience this at all. I've used several of PIA's server, but not specifically the US-East server.

Hmm, strange. Wonder why mine seems to disconnect somewhat frequently. I am using same settings as yourself, just a different server. Out of curiosity what DNS servers are you using? What version of pfSense?

I have setup a box at work with linux, I will see if it has disconnection issues. I thought it seemed strange to disconnect frequently. My internet service is pretty rock solid, very rarely see any outages thankfully. Maybe I will try a different server for a bit and see if it makes any difference.

Kevin

mpboden

@ouldsmobile:

Woops, sorry I followed a couple tutorials when I set mine up

No problem. Just wanted to make sure that there's no confusion

@ouldsmobile:

Out of curiosity what DNS servers are you using?

I'm using Google's DNS servers. Also, under System->General Setup, I do not have the following checked: Allow DNS server list to be overridden by DHCP/PPP on WAN

@ouldsmobile:

What version of pfSense?

2.1.3-RELEASE

ouldsmobile

@mpboden:

@ouldsmobile:

Woops, sorry I followed a couple tutorials when I set mine up

No problem. Just wanted to make sure that there's no confusion

@ouldsmobile:

Out of curiosity what DNS servers are you using?

I'm using Google's DNS servers. Also, under System->General Setup, I do not have the following checked: Allow DNS server list to be overridden by DHCP/PPP on WAN

@ouldsmobile:

What version of pfSense?

2.1.3-RELEASE

Yup, same here all around. I will go through all my settings, make sure I didn't miss anything. I may try PIA's DNS servers. Maybe that will be better. Worst case I can put the OpenVPN client back on my linux box which was more reliable it seems, although this was kind of the purpose of building the pfSense box, lol. :-) Go figure.

skynet99

Thanks for the tutorial!

I had made a simular setup but I was missing the advanced setting.

I have a problem that occurs every few days; the VPN service will be up but the IP address will be missing from the VPN display on the dashboard page. The VPN log will have 500+ entries that say…


Iopenvpn[72509]: RESOLVE: Cannot resolve host address: us-midwest.privateinternetaccess.com: hostname nor servname provided, or not known

I can get it working again by restarting the service. I think it's some type of DNS problem, but I don't have way to debug it.

Any suggestion on what I should try?

If I could restart the VPN service every hour that would partial fix it.

{edit}
OK I found the problem, in my DNS server I had set the gateway to the VPN interface. I guess every few days the IP address changes and when that happens it needs to use DNS to find the new IP address. Anyway I added an extra DNS on the WAN interface, and to day it was able to get the new IP address. I checked the https://www.dnsleaktest.com/ and http://ipleak.net/ it not showing my IP address. On a side note when I use 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 I get better RTT, in my case ~60ms

neonflx

this is by far the best tutorial I've found for PFsense and PIA, others have you do redundant steps that are no needed.

Thanks a lot, great information

sparks305

This is a great tutorial no doubt, and thank you very much for it!

I only have one issue I'm trying to resolve but have failed, I want to bypass the vpn for one specific ip (my desktop, for gaming reasons) and leave everything else go through the vpn.

So far I have everything setup and working with the tutorial. I have found similiar posts by using google but nothing I have found has worked. The closest post I've found related to my problem is https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=58630.0 and I've tried to follow jimp's suggestion by creating this lan rule:

But still have no luck getting that single ip to bypass the vpn.

Any suggestions and feedback is greatly appreciated.

Mr. Jingles

I also wanted to compliment you on this fine (excellent) tutorial ;D

It even turned out that I appear to have done something wrong myself months ago (certificate part), and for some strange reason, it did work all these months.

Mr. Jingles

@sparks305:

This is a great tutorial no doubt, and thank you very much for it!

I only have one issue I'm trying to resolve but have failed, I want to bypass the vpn for one specific ip (my desktop, for gaming reasons) and leave everything else go through the vpn.

But still have no luck getting that single ip to bypass the vpn.

Any suggestions and feedback is greatly appreciated.

I also have the same problem. I think JimP responded to me about this problem in my thread some months ago, but I didn't understand and then it blead do death :-[

xman111

I as well want to route certain traffic around the VPN but my rules aren't working.. It looks just like the above pictures.

kars85

@xman111:

I as well want to route certain traffic around the VPN but my rules aren't working.. It looks just like the above pictures.

+1

It is working for me now, but had not been working for nearly 48 hours. What got it working, I have no idea since I haven't done a thing to pfSense settings since I initially created a thread on the issue.

kars85

So I had a chance to test a few things, specifically what made it work and what didn't. Here's some screenshots of my interface rules. I've kept some of them in there, just disabled, in case for whatever reason things go south again.

The big takeaway was to specify the gateway that each rule should use for what gets tunneled through VPN, as well as what host ip/alias you want to use the non-VPN tunnel gateway from your ISP.

Hope this helps some others…