Help with Routing

[browndog]

I've read the posts on routing, but am still unclear.

I use myPlex sharing and when I connect to my VPN I am not able to use this because my provider (Tunnelr) doesn't support port forwarding.

I only want my usernetserver and nzbmatrix to route through VPN. I know I have to find the ip addresses, but how do I find the range? I've tried testing it by just putting in http://speedtest.net so I could see if my ip address changed, but I don't think I did it right. Any help?

Thanks, Travis

[browndog]

I've read through the posts, but still having issues.

I found the ip address of speedtest.net by doing a long test. I use this as the ip address when I click on networking, then the plus sign. I use vpn_gateway as the gateway and leave the subnet to the default null value. All of my traffic is still being routed through the VPN. I'm using Tunnelr.

[browndog]

is this a retarded question or something?

I've searched the forum for 'redirect-gateway', but only two posts showed up.

This post made it sound like I should (possibly) find my answers with disabling redirect-gateway.:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=710&p=2283&hilit=redirect+gateway#p2283

Can someone throw me a bone?

[James]

Hi browndog,

Well there are two things you need to check. Firstly, make sure that the Plex Media Server app is still listening on your normal local IP address, and not just your VPN IP address. In most cases apps should be listening on all IP addresses your computer has assigned, however you may want to check this with them.

Secondly, you'll need to ensure that any outgoing traffic from the Plex Media Server app is going through your normal VPN connection, and not the VPN. This bit is tricky, as you probably don't know the IP addresses you/people are remotely are trying to access your Plex Media Server from, so you can't easily specify net_gateway routes. The only way around this is to do the opposite: specify the traffic you want to have go through the VPN, and have everything else go through your normal network connection by default. See the following post for how to achieve this: viewtopic.php?p=1049#p1049

Cheers,
James

[browndog]

Thank you for the help, I will try those instructions. I read on one of the posts regarding routing that some sites can have ranges of ip addresses. If I do a ping test to my usenet server, that's the only ip address I need to worry about to have usenet traffic go through VPN for example, right? There aren't ranges of ip addresses that don't show up on a ping test. If this sounds stupid I'm sorry, I'm an idiot when it comes to networking.

[James]

Hi browndog,

I'm afraid I'm not all that familiar with Usenet - I assume you just connect to a single server.

However while you may have a single address for your Usenet server, it is theoretically possible that this address may resolve to multiple IP addresses. However as long as you enter the address, and not just a single IP, OpenVPN should handle this. If not, simply use a tool like nslookup to get each IP address, and then add a route for each one.

Cheers,
James

[browndog]

Thanks James. I followed the instructions verbatim. I unpicked the checkbox for send all traffic through VPN, and all traffic was still being sent through VPN. I then unpicked the Pull option. This made it so I couldn't connect which made sense since they are providing me with the ip address.

Then I rechecked the pull option, but went to Advanced and added on a new line route-nopull with no quotes. This allowed me to connect to the VPN, but I can't go to any websites. As a test I added in the routing table http://www.speedtest.net with all of the values you said in the linked post and vpn_gateway as the gateway. When I try to connect to speediest.net I can't, it just churns and churns... Am I to the point where I will have to try and script? My provider is Tunnelr.

Thanks,

[James]

Hi browndog,

Then I rechecked the pull option, but went to Advanced and added on a new line route-nopull with no quotes. This allowed me to connect to the VPN, but I can't go to any websites.

Try turning off DNS Support (under the Networking tab) as well when performing this option - it's possible it was doing what you wanted it to, but Internet browsing was failing as the DNS server pushed out by your VPN Provider was unreachable outside of the VPN.

Am I to the point where I will have to try and script?

Using the script approach to delete the default route set by the VPN connection is definitely the most reliable option.

Cheers,
James

[browndog]

I contacted Tunnelr support, they said

"Our service pushes a redirect-gateway command, which causes all of your traffic to go over the VPN."

Does this help at all, any idea what would get this to work?

I tried what you suggested, but unchecking the DNS box allows me to connect & surf, but I'm not going through the tunnel. My IP address is still my ISP provided, not my VPN provided....

[browndog]

I'm getting closer. I redid the instructions that you gave me, but instead of inputting www.speedtest.net, I entered the IP address, and unchecked the DNS box. This worked!! speediest showed me my VPN ip address. I then tried to add www.whatismyip.com's IP address, and my ip address didn't change

So I removed both of them, and entered the IP address of my usenetserver. When I click on the details view in Viscosity it's showing 2MB/s down. That means my download is going through the tunnel right?

1) Any idea why I have to enter the ip address and can't use the DNS name?

2) Why does it fail when I enter more than one?

I'm so close now....