Open VPN over cell connection - should web traffic work?

richtj99

Hi,

i am using OpenVPN & thanks to this forum it works great. The only issue I have is that web traffic seems not to work over my Verizon LTE Nexus when dialed into the VPN.

I am able to access my home network (VPN) devices, but not anything external. Is there a setting or something I need to do? A dns or something that might not be correct?

THanks,
Rich

johnpoz

Well are you setting default gateway out your vpn? Ie forcing traffic down the vpn? I take it you mean internet still works when your on your vpn, just that your not going through the vpn and your ip shows up as your cell IP.

richtj99

In my openVpn settings i do not have "Redirect Gateway Force all client generated traffic through the tunnel." checked. I believe everything as left as defaults.

While using cell phones:

I do not have any internet access when connected to the VPN beyond anything internal on my home network. So I can view internal webservers & other internal services but noting external.

So if I am connected via VPN & want to browse reddit, imjur or facebook it wont load, if I disconnect the VPN it works fine - but of course I lose my internal items.

Thanks,
Rich

johnpoz

Why would your phone use your vpn connection for internet, if only route you gave it was your home network.

So on my phone using the openvpn connect app, I just set the config to direct default gateway out the vpn.. So attached you will see on my phone going to internet my IP is 17.52.x.x, I then connect to my vpn. And now my phone shows me my IP of my home connection that I vpn'd too.

If you want your vpn client to use the vpn for "internet' then you have to tell the vpn client to use that as its default gateway. Or its just going to use that connection to get to networks that you told it were on the other side via the route statements you sent it.

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AndrewZ

One more thing to mention - if you assign your VPN clients IPs from subnet which is different from your LAN - you will need a separate NAT rule to allow this traffic to leave your pfSense box.