OpenVPN v3 on Windows 11

[Marrik]

Hi all,

I have an Orbi RBS50 router (running the latest firmware) on which I activated VPN. On my iPhone I can connect just fine to it.

Now I want my laptop (Windows 11 Pro) to connect to it so I downloaded OpenVPN v3 and tried to import the "client.ovpn" file, which I exported from my router. The import fails with the message "TAP mode is not supported". 

I've read on the OpenVPN forum that v3 will not support TAP mode, only OpenVPN v2 supports it. So I downloaded v2 and tried to import the ovpn file again. This time that works however, when want to connect to my VPN, OpenVPN v2 says "no VPN servers found". 😬

So my next step was try using the default Windows 11 VPN client. This connection needs a certificate so I imported the ca and client certificates but they do not show up in the W11 VPN certificate list. 😒

Any ideas on how to solve this?

Thanks!

KR, Marrik

[Marrik · Accepted solution]

No, not any website can be opened, including the local one.

No response from any device I tried to ping.

[FURRYe38]

Something to contact OpenVPN about. 

[Marrik]

That might be a good option. 😀

[CrimpOn]

Yes, the version of OpenVPN server on the Orbi router is so old that the default ovpn file for Windows is a tap connection.

One solution is to modify the ovpn file and change it to a tun connection.

client

dev tun

proto udp

dev-node NETGEAR-VPN

remote xxxxxxx.mynetgear.com 12973

resolv-retry infinite

nobind

persist-key

persist-tun

ca ca.crt

cert client.crt

key client.key

cipher AES-128-CBC

comp-lzo

verb 0

sndbuf 393216

rcvbuf 393216

route-method exe

I use both OpenVPN 2.6.8 and OpenVPN 3.4.3 on Windows.

[Marrik]

Hi CrimpOn,

Thanks for the suggestion. I did try that but now OpenVPN v3 gives me this error message:

option_error: sorry, unsuported options present in configuration: UNKNOWN/UNSUPPORTED OPTION (dev-node)

The dev-node refers to "NETGEAR-VPN" and I do have a VPN network connection in my list of connections with this name.

[Marrik]

Okay, did some more testing based on the last reply. 

I removed the dev-node and set the "dev" parameter to "tun".

Now I can connect using OpenVPN v3 however, I cannot access any website (no internet) or my home network.

So some progress but not there yet. 😁

[CrimpOn]

Which option is selected on the OpenVPN setup?

What IP address shows up for the VPN device in Attached Devices?

Because the VPN is on a different IP subnet, the Orbi LAN devices have to be accessed by IP address.  Any sort of broadcast technology, such as Bonjour will fail because broadcast packets do not go across a tunnel. (That's the major difference with tap connections.)

[Marrik]

I have tried both "Auto" and "All sites on the internet & Home network". No success. 🙄

The VPN device gets 192.168.2.2 as IP address. That seems to be correct. If I connect my iPhone it gets this same IP address and that works just fine.

[CrimpOn]

Can a web browser open http://192.168.1.1 ?

Are there any devices on the LAN that respond to ICMP (ping?)

(Windows Firewall, for example, must be told to respond to ICMP.  Some devices, such as my Epson Printer, Sonos 1, and Raspberry Pi do.  The Echo Dot speaker, however, does not.

[Marrik · Accepted solution]

No, not any website can be opened, including the local one.

No response from any device I tried to ping.

[Marrik]

I seems that I will not get this working so I am going to switch to a more modern router. 🙂