Using a client.ovpn file with pfsense

madsere · Oct 29, 2013, 5:56 AM

I use pfsense 2.1 as my router in a standard home setting with two ISP's. Everything works as it should but I'm in a country with awful international bandwidth. I have been given a openvpn account on a server in a neighbouring country, and when I use that my bandwidth increase about 25% while my ping go down to half. I'm not sure why but suspect it's due to ISP profiling and/or poor 3rd world network setup.

Practically I received a "client.ovpn" file, and when I use it with openvpn on my linux pc it works as it should, but given we have a couple of devices (pc's, phones) in the household that could be nice to route through the vpn, plus the fact that traffic to local servers become incredibly slow by being routed out of the country, I'd like to attach this vps account to pfsense, both so everybody in the house can use it, and so that I might make rules in the firewall that route local server traffic outside the vpn.

Is that possible? I don't really know much more about the server than the client.ovpn file i was given, presumably containing the details needed for openvpn to set up the link.

Any help or guidance to push me in the right direction is much appreciated!

marvosa · Oct 29, 2013, 4:50 PM

I imagine you would just open the client.ovpn file and transfer the corresponding info to the client section of OpenVPN in the GUI. Then any settings that are not covered in the GUI would just be added to the Advanced configuration section.

madsere · Oct 30, 2013, 4:26 AM

Indeed, thanks much. Coming from the Windows world I didn't expect the file to be human-readable.

I believe I now have the VPN link configured correctly, and in Firewall > Rules I now have an OpenVPN tab, in addition to my different networks.

My pfsense is set up in what I believe is the standard way for dual wan. Normally I'd go to the Lan tab and create a new rule, I can make selections for which conditions I'd want to use the VPN, but I can't see where I then pick the VPN link? I would assume I should pick "Gateway" but when I do that I don't see VPN as a gateway???

mirimir · Nov 8, 2013, 4:02 AM

I've written a very easy-to-follow guide for setting up OpenVPN clients in pfSense. It's at https://www.ivpn.net/privacy-guides/advanced-privacy-and-anonymity-part-6.

madsere · Dec 14, 2013, 8:10 AM

Thanks for the link Mirimir, unfortunately I think we have different ideas of what is "easy-to-follow", besides your page discuss a very different setup, installing pfsense in VM's and what-not.

I already have a dedicated pfsense router that I wish to use. I futher wish to route traffic to one of 3 VPN servers based on protocol/target name/IP address.

My pfsense is set up in what I believe is the standard way for dual wan. Normally I'd go to the Lan tab and create a new rule, I can make selections for which conditions I'd want to use the VPN, but I can't see where I then pick the VPN link? I would assume I should pick "Gateway" but when I do that I don't see VPN as a gateway???