VPN TAP i.e. iOS Support or lack thereof

[xandalf]

Hi,

I bought the R7000 router because it was advertising VPN support only to find out during setup that it doesn't support iOS TUN devices. Which are pretty much the only devices I would need VPN support for.

Has anyone heard or seen any information with regards to TUN support by the openvpn server running in the router firmware?

Are there any plans on adding support for TUN?

Thanks

[mikewebb]

Yeah, crazy that it has to be like this.

I just purchased a R7000 and walked straight into this issue as well. The web site and box says VPN support. I asked the guy at the store what VPN does it do he said OpenVPN. Cool I thought as I had an old soon-to-go linux box acting as a server for my laptop, iPhone and ipad (openvpn client connect for iOS) when on the road.

I found the vpn setup (a bit to) easy to setup and great that certs and config that were exported were successfully loaded into my macbook and everything connect and worked (except for all traffic through vpn, might be a viscosity issue but it worked fine with my homeboy vpn)

The alarm bells started ring when I saw the "Currently iOS and Android clients are not supported." on the VPN page. No panic at first as in many cases for a commercial application "not supported" can mean if you can get it work, great, but your on your own.

The import into openvpn client connect bombed so I had a look at the conf file and it had "dev tap". I've had this before with my home server, change a couple lines here and there to read "dev tun" and everyones happy. Unfortunately there is no where on the server to change the dev type (and dev tun as way more practical for many other purposes).

So my questions are:

a) Why is the openVPN on the r7000 crippled? A lot of us use and VPN else where and know what is possible, so to me I see this as taking the piss and a (bad) business decision to compete with or an upset avenue to the prosafe line. the r7000 is way more powerful then some pfsense boxes I've built so should be able to way more fanciful network voodoo.


b) When the state on VPN iOS client support says "currently", how long is that current time line? It gives me hope that one day (soon) tun will be an option and would be great for some kind roadmap to be made public.

At the moment I'm left with a few options:
1 - Wait for the change. would be the ideal as there are some very good redeeming features to the r7000, but as this usually never happens..meh!
2 - Reflash my box to something that does what I want. If I have to do that I may as well return the r7000 and get something that does what I need it to do.
3 - put a pfSense box between my r7000 and dsl modem. Probably very good thing to regardless.

Anyway. Nether, give us TUN and all will be forgiven for this bastard version of VPN you got going on this device. OR, seeing as so many devices and OS's out there support L2TP out of box how about adding that?

have a great day

[jannisj]

I agree.

This bothers me aswell.

It's not exactly the cheapest router around either...

-J

[JamesGL]

Hi All,

Welcome to Community!

OpenVPN for iOS and Android will be be added in R7000 support but no ETA yet when it will be released.

Regards,

JamesGL

Community Team

[StGeorgeA]

Honestly?  No ETA for iOS support?

This router is two (2) years old and the market has been proliferated with iOS devices for many years now.  Why so long?

The R8000 is using the same modified OpenVPN support without iOS support.  This is almost borderline false advertising.

Please publish the firmware update supporting iOS!

[jannisj]

Another thing that bugs me is a lack of a better dns/dhcp server for internal use.
It should be pretty easy to include dnsmasq as a minimum.
Would be nice to not have to setup a proper dns and dhcp on a raspberry pi..

[JamesGL]

@StGeorgeA,

This will be released as soon as it is available.

Regards,

JamesGL
Community Team

[bukcy]

I also could really use IOS support as I use VPN to check my security cameras and primarily do this from my iPhone.  

[Dafo]

Update including VPN TUN for iOS and Android is on it's way, see link to beta firmware:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Nighthawk-WiFi-Routers/R7000-firmware-v1-0-5-44-limited-release/td-...

[RickyN29]

Will there be any beta release for the R6900 model?  Can't believe it offers VPN but not through iOS!

Thanks

[Co1one1Panic]

I'd also love to know when TUN support is coming to the R6900.  

It's pretty unfortunate that you don't warn about the lack of TUN support on the box, since VPN was one of the primary reasons I chose this router.  

The box says "VPN Support". The box should instead say "VPN Support (TAP Only)"

[Andys2020]

Same question on R8000 - any eta of the release?

[Taskmastr]

Yes, this 6900 may have to go back to Costco since it seems unlikely to get support with nobody commenting.

[costr]

Same for 7500....about ready to dump the router

[Co1one1Panic]

That's exactly what I ended up doing with my R6900. Thankfully Costco's return policy is great.

I ordered an R700 on Amazon, put DD-WRT on it, and now I'm VPN'ing like a champ from multiple devices.

I can't help but wonder if Costco said "No, we don't want to sell something with easy support for open firmware, can you make us a version that locks the user in to Netgear firmware?"  If so, I also can't help but wonder if they are losing more money on returns of the R6900 than they feared they'd lose on returns by allowing open-source firmware.  

[Kieran821]

I have a similar issue I recently bought a D7000 (the same as the r7000 but with a built in modem) thought I'd pay the extra to do away with the external modem. I got it because I wanted to run VPN through it rather then on each device as it's advertised as VPN supported only when I went into it did I discover it's VPN server only!! Again very misleading advertising I feel as they could have stated VPN server supported. I find it a joke that a high end and definatly not cheap router does not support this function out of the box and to add insult to injury I cannot flash it with DD-WRT ot Tomato because of the dual function. I asked support if there were any plans to add VPN client but may as well have been talking to myself tbh. Again I think they are withholding this function because of fear it will impact on there prosafe range even though I see prosafe as more business and the d/r7000 as home/ small business. Think I may just return it and get an Asus which support all VPN functionality out of the box which is a shame because it's a great router being held back from its potential

[lc2426]

I bought NightHawk x8 R8500 first one site. I thought it is great. I bought NightHawk x6 R8000 for VPN in less busy site. I was surprise it didn't support VPN for IOS and Android which it supposed to work it nowaday. Would you help to fix it, please!

[Andys2020]

I am shocked it is not available for R8000

[Andys2020]

Any updates on Smartphone support for R8000? I see it is there for R8500 ... PLEASE!!!!!

[Andys2020]

If there is any BETA firmware...maybe...?

[JamesGL]

Hi Andys2020,

No beta firmware available and no ETA when the feature will be available.

JamesGL

Community Team

[lc2426]

no worry !
I just bought CISCO VPN router to do the job.
My the way, I bought X8, X6 & other my families & relatives. This is very discourged For mobile dominate world, Netgear decision is strange.

[Andys2020]

To end this - I just setup openvpn on Ubuntu server, That I have. 

[CyberTri]

I found the solution to this is to use an ANdroid app that permit TAP connections.  I downloaded the "Windows" version of the *.ovpn file plus .key & .crt to a file on my android phone and used the app called

"OpenVPN Client" in the playstore to import the config.  Only the pro version wroks with TAP, but I could not find another solution. $7.99.  I can say that it does fully work though. No idea if IOS has the same app.

[H--]

I just purchased the R8000 and am setting up this evening - whats the status on R8000 supportint TUN/IOS with OpenVPN?  If there isn't a clear timeline I will need to return the router as this is absolutely necessary for me - seems like false advertising on the box and and obious need. Seeing that this question has been out for over a year doesn't give me much confidence.