Error 601

I have been using OpenVPN on DD-WRT on an old TP-Link something-or-other to connect my home in Alberta to my home in Colorado.

Unfortunately over the last couple of weeks the old something-or-other has become unreliable and has been freezing almost daily. Configuring it to reboot every 12 hours has somewhat alleviated the issue but it still obviously failing.

I was going to buy another SuperMicro barebones box to duplicate the Colorado setup, but then I came across some Asus routers with built-in OpenVPN support.

Is anyone using one of these for this purpose? The setup looks a whole lot more user-friendly than DD-WRT.

My enthusiasm for consumer networking hardware is minimal to non-existent and they aren't cheap.

gfunkdave

For the past several years I have been using Asus routers running Tomato firmware to do exactly what you describe. I didn't know the stock firmware supported OpenVPN. But Tomato might be a happy middle ground for you - Linux based but much more user friendly and tolerant of user error than DD-WRT.

Check out some of the older Asus models - RT-n16 if you don't need 5GHz or RT-n66u if you do.

docbert

Even if the ASUS doesn't include OpenVPN, there is third-party firmware for most of them called ASUSWRT-Merlin that does. Google will find it for you...

I use this for both incoming and outgoing VPN tunnels.

Error 601

This was news to me as well, the only VPN client functionality I recall seeing on a stock consumer router prior was PPTP and L2TP but an OpenVPN client does appear to be there on the higher-end N and AC models.

I guess I will just have to give it a shot.

For the record the something-or-other is a TL-WR1043ND, I think it was $20 at Newegg on Black Friday 2011.

milestraveler

As another option: some of Buffalo's routers ship(ped) with firmware derived from DD-WRT that includes OpenVPN. Probably the only advantage over normal DD-WRT is that it comes pre-installed, but that does make life simpler.

theworld

I've got an Asus RT-N66U and have flashed it with Merlin. Basically Merlin is based on the Asus ui, but with additional functionality, including Open VPN support. You can find more information here: http://www.snbforums.com/forums/asuswrt-merlin.42/

Mul

I'm using Asus RT-N66U , using the stock firmware for OpenVPN. It's been working fine, able to use it on my iOS devices, you just need to download the OpenVPN client app to add support on your iOS.

So far haven't seen any issues.

Are you T-Mobile customer? They do have cellspot router, based on Asus as well.

Error 601

I ultimately went with the RT-AC56U and the OpenVPN client functionality is indeed there but a few menus deep, but I'm a little underwhelmed VPN throughput wise. Despite being quite a bit more powerful than the old TP-Link router it isn't going all that faster.

Using a software client I can get near wire speed out of the 50 Mbps connection, the RT-AC56U does about 15 Mbps, the TP-Link did about 10 Mbps. The machine on the Colorado end is a 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo with 4GB of ram.

I don't know if that is something Merlin would improve upon. I bought it to replace a device that had come to be unreliable. But I expected more of an improvement from a significantly more powerful device. Perhaps it is an overhead issue.

docbert

Why do you want the VPN? If it's not for security, then configure OpenVPN on both ends to disable encryption - it'll make a significant difference to performance.

eg, I have :
auth none
cipher none

You may also want to look at compression - depending on what it's being used for you might be better with the disabled.

Error 601

Well I don't want to do that. I'm just surprised that the much faster hardware in the Asus router didn't yield spectacularly better performance than the old TP-Link hardware.

I probably should have gone with a x86 setup, but I'm trying to keep the clutter up here to a minimum.