OpenVPN & PIA - Inconsistent Connection

Colin_Maclaurin

I'm experiencing some connection issues with OpenVPN and haven't been able to find an answer.

I've set up OpenVPN on pfSense 2.1 and I'm able to connect to the PIA VPN server after a reboot of the router but the connection is lost after some idle time and I have to restart the VPN or reboot the router. I don't know if this matters but I used the auto-rule creation option to create the firewall rules and I've read that these rules can behave erratically. Or is this a consequence of leaving the connection idle and the VPN server severs the connection?

On an unrelated note, having OpenVPN set up on the pfSense router, do I need to run the OpenVPN client on the computer connected to the router? I believe the rules set will route all traffic to the VPN. Also, is there a way to configure a secondary VPN connection on the router if the primary VPN server is down or unreachable.?

Thank you in advance for your time and any advice or suggestions.

gazzaman

Hi Colin,
I use PIA Openvpn and have no issue with it logging off so I would guess that its your firewall rules.
I actually have 4 clients load balanced to PIA which works well.
have you tried remove the fire rules you have and seeing if the system becomes more stable.

Colin_Maclaurin

Hi Gazzaman,

Sorry for the late response but I had a setback and had to create everything from scratch and have been struggling to get it up-and-running again. I've been able to get the PIA client to connect to the server but I get no internet access when I do. I checked the gateways and the PIA gateway is always pending or down and I suspect that's the problem. I have just basic rules set in the firewall to pass everything on IPv4 for both the LAN and WAN.

I try not to reboot because another problem I've had is that every reboot I have to go through the process of reassigning interfaces and reloading a configuration to get everything running again. Also, my links go down after some indeterminate period of time. I'm not sure if all of these things are related but any advice is as always greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Colin_Maclaurin

I just tried restarting the VPN and it now works but the other issues of links going down and what not are still pending. I'll have to see how long this stays connected for.