Help with OpenVPN Client on Windows 10

[seth01123]

Hello, I have looked through a lot of the posts here and I found a few that talked about this problem but I have tried and tried to get this working and I am having no luck at all. I have searched google and watched a lot of videos but nothing I can find has helped me so far.

I have successfully setup OpenVPN on my Orbi Router(RBR50 with 1 Satellite RBS50) and I am able to access my home network successfully using my iPhone.

I am now trying to setup the Windows 10 client so I can access my home network from a windows 10 PC at work. And, for the life of me, I cannot get this to work. I have attached a screenshot of the openvpn profile for windows that gets downloaded from the Orbi VPN settins page.

I have followed the steps in this netgear guide:

https://kb.netgear.com/31487/How-do-I-use-VPN-service-on-my-Orbi-system-with-my-Windows-client

It seems that OpenVPN has updated the client since this guide came out. And the process ends up being different. The OpenVPN client I am downloading is the "OpenVPN Connect V3" version. Everything goes pretty smoothly until I try and import the config file and I get the following error :option_error: proto_option_error: TAP mode is not supported"

So to my understanding, the new version of the client does not support TAP. The problem is that I am not sure how to adjust the config file so it will be accepted by the new client. There have been a few suggestions in some other netgear posts that I have tried but it is still not working.

I have updated the firmware of the Orbi and made sure that windows is fully updated.

The config file that gets downloaded from the Orbi has 4 files. I am dragging and dropping the file with the extention ".ovpn"

Is there anybody that has had success with this type of setup? Any suggesstions would be helpful. Thanks.

[CrimpOn · Accepted solution]

There are two solutions to this problem:

• Download a different OpenVPN Client.  The specific application OpenVPN Connect Client supports only tun connections.  There is other software from OpenVPN that does support tap connections on Windows 10.  (It's the word "Connect". There is another OpenVPN Client that is just OpenVPN Client.)
  On Windows 10, I use the tunXten software which supports both tap and tun.  (I like the ability to switch between VPN hosts better with tunXten than with OpenVPN Connect Client. - but that's just my opinion.)
• If you want to use OpenVPN Connect Client, change the ovpn file in two ways,
  1) change "tap" to "tun"
  2) dhange the port number from 12974 to 12973
  These changes tell OpenVPN Connect Client to use tun (which works)

[CrimpOn · Accepted solution]

There are two solutions to this problem:

• Download a different OpenVPN Client.  The specific application OpenVPN Connect Client supports only tun connections.  There is other software from OpenVPN that does support tap connections on Windows 10.  (It's the word "Connect". There is another OpenVPN Client that is just OpenVPN Client.)
  On Windows 10, I use the tunXten software which supports both tap and tun.  (I like the ability to switch between VPN hosts better with tunXten than with OpenVPN Connect Client. - but that's just my opinion.)
• If you want to use OpenVPN Connect Client, change the ovpn file in two ways,
  1) change "tap" to "tun"
  2) dhange the port number from 12974 to 12973
  These changes tell OpenVPN Connect Client to use tun (which works)

[seth01123]

Thank you so much for the info. I’m gonna try using the Openvpen connect client to see if that works, if not then I’ll try TunXten.
Just to clarify, are you saying to change the TAP service port(in the Orbi VPN settings) from 12974 to 12973, so that it is the same as the TUN service port?

[CrimpOn]

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@seth01123 wrote:
Thank you so much for the info. I’m gonna try using the Openvpen connect client to see if that works, if not then I’ll try TunXten.
Just to clarify, are you saying to change the TAP service port(in the Orbi VPN settings) from 12974 to 12973, so that it is the same as the TUN service port?

---

Orbi's implementation of OpenVPN supports both tap on port 12974 and tun on port 12973.  (The ports can be changed if someone wants to.) Smartphone and Mac versions of OpenVPN do not support tap, so when Orbi creates parameter files for them, it specifies the tun version.  Windows has always suipported tap, which makes the device totally iintegrated with the Orbi LAN, so Orbi creates a parameter file for tap.

Since version 3.0 of the OpenVPN Connect Client application, this specific app only supports tun, and it rejects Orbi's tap parameters

To use OpenVPN Connect Client, the parameter file must be for tun and the port number must match the tun port number defined in the Orbi configuration.

Other versions of OpenVPN for Windows support both tap and tun, so the user can choose which type of connection they want to use.

[CrimpOn]

A search for "VPN tap vs. tun" will find numerous articles explaining the differences between them. Pros and Cons, etc. Since Orbi supports both types of connection, the user can choose which type best meets their specific needs.

The "gotchas" are that

• OpenVPN for some platforms supports only tun, so Orbi creates parameter files that specify tun., and
• This one app previously supporet both and now supports only tun (which caught people by surprise).

[seth01123]

Thank you again for your responses.
If I am going to try using the OpenVPN Connect V3 version, I understand that I need to change two things in the config file.

1. I need to change “tap” to “tun” (instead of saying “dev tap” it will say “dev tun”)
2. I need to change the port number from “12974” to “12973”.
I see the line where I need to change it to tun. But in the config file I don’t currently see a specified port number to change. Screenshot of config file is in original post.
Where should I be putting in the correct port number in the config file?

[CrimpOn]

I see the confusion.  On the line that starts "remote", you carefully blocked out the Dynamic DNS name. The port number is at the end of that line and is also blocked out on the image that was uploaded to the forum.

[seth01123]

yes I did, wow I am sorry for that oversight.

 I changed "dev tap" to "dev tun" and I changed the port to 12973, imported the file and clicked connect and everything is working!