I did some research on how to setup a VPN on the router so that I don’t have to do it on all of my home devices, but sadly my netgear nighthawk x4 r7500 does not support dd-wrt. I asked a friend about this and he told me he has a server that has the VPN running 24/7 on it and its somehow connected to the router which provides VPN for the whole house. I read about port forwarding a bit but I still do not understand the concept. Is it even possible this way or is it only possible through the router factory firmware?
Can you load tomato?
I’m using it on an Asus router… I travel a lot so I made a travel router. I plug it in to whatever network I’m at and it automatically logs in to a VPN in the US and routes all my traffic. Really nice for sketchy areas.
You could buy another router to use just as a Wireless Access point in your home network. This second router would also be your back-up router, as router hardware is very cheap and can flake out very quickly.
You could set up your VPN-client on this second router. And if you chose to buy a second router, make sure you do your research before buying the router. Ideally, a router with atheros wireless chips works the best with OpenWRT or DD-WRT.
[OpenWrt Wiki] Table of Hardware ← OpenWRT Table of Hardware.
Remember the router will be encrypting/decrypting traffic. Most retail routers have limited processing power to do this without noticing a speed difference, especially if you want to support an entire house. You might want to look into a dedicated PC running something like pFsense.
I setup a VPN VM. On this VM i run three things: VPN, Transmission server, and Sabnzbd. All clients in the home network point to the transmission server and Sabnzbd server. No real need to put the whole house on VPN anymore since it adds latency and reduced overall bandwidth capability.
For me the only CON is a torrent download outside of the VPN. I.e. Mis configured client, etc. PROS are that my ISP doesn’t complain about certain traffic. All other clients receive full download/upload speed.
If you internet is faster than 50mbps be sure to get a router with a cpu support aes-ni (very few out there). If it’s faster than ~150mbps, you’ll need a pfsense or similar router os installed in a laptop/desktop/box that has an aes-ni supporting cpu.
I have a R7000 and it tops out at about 40mbps, my work around is to exclude my desktop from the VPN in the router settings and use open vpn on it.
I never tried to use a VPN for the whole house because it depends of what you really expect. Let me give you two simple cases.
If you want to download with a BitTorrent software on a private tracker, you HAVE TO share in return the same quantity of data you get from others. To do that, the port forwaring is required. Imagine you have a (not so)smartphone without a phone number. With such device, you can call your friends (connect) and exchange with them (download) BUT they can’t contact you when they want! In other words, you can share when you download but you don’t share when other people need it even if your software is running because without port forwarding they can’t connect to your BitTorrent client.
Another use case is when you need to connect to your house’s computer when your are in the outside. If you can’t open a connection to the port forwarded, you will not be able to connect and open a session.
The main problem with a centralized VPN is that you can’t have multiple simultaneous connections. Because of this, you can have only one port forwarded to only one computer! On the other hand, with most VPN providers you can connect on several computers with only one account and get one port forwarded by device! That’s why in some cases it’s better to use a VPN session by device and not a centralized connection.
Now, if you just want to increase and protect your privacy, you don’t have to worry about this kind of details.
Netgear has this article about VPN on the Nighthawk. How do I use a VPN on my Nighthawk router to access my internet service at home? - NETGEAR Support
After i buy a second one and set it up(idk how to even set it up with PIA vpn but ill figure it out) how do connect it and do the whole AP thing?
What are the pro and cons of doing it with another machine than with the router?
What speeds are you getting?
I generally check but thanks for reminding!
Apologies - but this has got nothing to do with ports…
You can set up one permanent VPN connection from within your network - the router is normally the easiest - and then either choose to route all traffic via this VPN, or just for a select few IPs.
This way, your TV can (for example) always go via the VPN, and your laptop over the “normal” internet.
Tomato / Merlin has got this feature built in btw so takes only a few minutes to set up.
how do connect it and do the whole AP thing?
You would use it as an alternative wireless access point, or if you want, as your main one.
If your main router is 192.168.1.1, then your second router would be 192.168.1.2, with its gateway 192.168.1.1. Very easy.
Sorry but you didn’t understand what I explain! I provide samples about port forwarding BECAUSE BordyBoy wrote: “I read about port forwarding a bit but I still do not understand the concept.”
I know what a centralized VPN is, I just explain what is port forwarding and why sometimes a centralized connection it’s NOT the solution!
Lets say i set it all up, how do i check/test that the vpn is working?
Ok cool - well articulated. I just wanted to disconnect the port discussion from the VPN topic.
You can check with online service like https://ipleak.net/ or with curl https://curl.haxx.se/ calling ipinfo like this: curl ipinfo.io
This will return informations about your IP address and location. Typicaly when connected with a VPN provider to another country, those services should localize your connection in this country.