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Forum Discussion

BrainSuperGlue's avatar
Mar 28, 2024

SXK30 VPN : 0.0.0.0 issue when not using dynamic DNS

Hi,

Based in the UK, have a third party DSL router which provides Internet access. This is connected to our SXK30 on its WAN port. All VLANs on the Orbi Pro network can surf the Internet fine.

On SXK30, needed a VPN with DDNS, so setup a no-ip account. Enabled VPN and Dynamic DNS, copied OpenVPN config setup, all VPN passthrough traffic worked through DSL router and could access the Orbi Pro admin over VPN. All good.

We now have a static Internet address, so don't need no-ip and other DDNS services, so turned off Dynamic DNS in the SXK30 menu and that was when the issue started.

When I downloaded the OpenVPN config files, the .ovpn file is showing 0.0.0.0 as the destination server and not the static external address of the router. Even if I change the IP address within the .ovpn file to the actual static Internet address, OpenVPN still won't connect because the key was created when the target was 0.0.0.0

So the question is, how (with the Dynamic DNS off) can I tell the VPN listener on the SXK30 to create a key for the external DSL router address and not default to 0.0.0.0?

TIA

BSG

12 Replies

  • schumaku's avatar
    schumaku
    Guru - Experienced User

    Put in the IP address you want into the remote field of the .ovpn file.

    • Hi,

      Manually adding the actual external address client.ovpn, on the remote line doesn't work.
      Whilst that config file correctly routes the client through to the external router and the router passes though the TAP traffic through to the Orbi Pro, the encryption key doesn't recognise that external address, so you get a yellow status, rather than the green status.

      When you download the VPN file set from the Orbi Pro VPN admin page (ca.crt, client.crt, client.key and client.ovpn) they all rely on the external IP address that the Orbi Pro can see at the time of the generation, which being dynamic DNS is turned off, is 0.0.0.0

      There needs to be an an additional option on that file generation page that says "Manually enter external Internet address that will be used : xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx".

      I'm thinking that maybe a workaround would be to activate Dynamic DNS, create a no-ip account with a temp hostname. Set that hostname to be the external IP address. The Orbi Pro VPN config would pull that external address from no-ip and use it when creating the encryption key. 

       

      Once the correct key is made, hopefully dynamic DNS could be disabled rather than every 30 days, keeping the temp hostname alive and that with the VPN active with the correct IP in the key AND the .ovpn file, the whole system will work.

      • schumaku's avatar
        schumaku
        Guru - Experienced User

        BrainSuperGlue wrote:

        Manually adding the actual external address client.ovpn, on the remote line doesn't work.


        You can enter any valid IP4 or DNS hostname there, of course.

         

        BrainSuperGlue wrote:

        Whilst that config file correctly routes the client through to the external router and the router passes though the TAP traffic through to the Orbi Pro, the encryption key doesn't recognise that external address, so you get a yellow status, rather than the green status.


        The OpenVPN client does offer a Show Log File (naming depends on the language version) along with the OpenVPN, nicely accumulated with timestamps. 

         

        Post the log file (with the DNS name or IP address xxxx-ed), and we can have an eye on it.

         

        BrainSuperGlue wrote:

        When you download the VPN file set from the Orbi Pro VPN admin page (ca.crt, client.crt, client.key and client.ovpn) they all rely on the external IP address that the Orbi Pro can see at the time of the generation, which being dynamic DNS is turned off, is 0.0.0.0..


        None of the OpenVPN certificates generated does contain any reference to the IP or th hostname - these are always the same. This isn't https.

         

        Yes, there are some or several shortcomings in this design, for example can the keys not re-generated from scratch.  

         

        BrainSuperGlue wrote:

        There needs to be an an additional option on that file generation page that says "Manually enter external Internet address that will be used : xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx"..


        For the few users with static IP addresses, this would be nice.

         

         

         

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