TL-WR710N VPN Settings

By popular demand:

Once you got your second router which supports L2TP or PPTP on the WAN interface, you can start settings up this little device. I used a TL-WR710N  by TP-Link. Small and handy. Other produkts might work too, I especially recall the TP-Link and D-Link routers to support this. But before you buy check whether they do support it or not.

So what else do you need besides this second router? Well, an ethernet cable to connect it to the original Base-Router and of course an active VPN-subscription of your choice. You will need an provider which overs pptp or L2tp access. But most do. Just check their packages avaibilbe or chat with the support.

Just a small reminder here again:

What are we trying to achieve?

1. Connect a router to a VPN server
2. Provide the VPN connection to multiple devices
3. All without flashing special firmware to a router, NO guarantee voided!
4. Using a 2nd cheap router as VPN router, NO interference with existing setup 

I am using the TL-WR710N as example here. Should be similar for other devices though!

prerequisite: Working home wifi/network with base-router. Connect the VPN-router WAN-port to a regular LAN-port on your base router. Power up the VPN router. Connect to the new VPN-router Wifi and do the "Quicksetup", or use a wired connection from the VPN-router LAN-port to your Laptop/PC.

Now you got a second, secluded wifi/network running on the VPN-router. To turn this network into a VPN routed one, go to "Network", "WAN" and change the connection Type to L2TP or PPTP and input your server credentials. Change the MTU value down to 1400. This fixes some issues while surfing. Choose "Connect Automatically", Hit SAVE and you are done. Every device (iPhone, AppleTV, Laptop, PC) connected to this VPN-router (wireless or wired) will be routed thru the VPN-server and avoid any GEO-blocking.

Softether - Raspberry Pi

Just found a very good writen German manual.

Also für alle dies auf deutsch lesen wollen, schaut euch ihn mal an:

http://go-seven.de/softether-vpn-auf-dem-raspberry-pi/

Copyright Pascal Tippelt

Good solution TL-WR710N

Usually the instructions given by the VPN providers are tailored to some special firmwares called DD-WRT, Tomato, Open-WRT and so on which have to be installed onto your router. I have done that with many routers, works fine, is okay.

But the much easier way is to just use a router, fresh from the shelf, cheap, easy to set up and no fuzzing around with your existing model. Maybe it's just a rental and you void warranty if you start installing diffrent firmwares on the router. Maybe there is no DDWRT or Tomato or whatever for the model which is sitting in your home.

So my advice, don't fuzz around with your existing setup/router. Get a seperate "VPN-router". Why? Well, you can still use your normal internet without VPN by just switching the the wifi network back to your "normal" one or plugging the LAN cable back to the old router which has been there all the time. Maybe VPN servers are down, your subscription is over or you just want that little extra of speed again back (using VPN connection often introduces a bottleneck which reduces your internet speeds). And if you mess up the configuration of the VPN router, you can always fall back to the good old normal router with just perfectly fine working internet.

So what model should you get as VPN router? Well you could buy expensive enterprise equipment. They often advert with features like "VPN ready" etc... But that's a bit of an overkill. maybe with an normal soho router like the one you already have, maybe just another model which has DD-WRT OpenWRT Tomato Support? Yeah, that would be a solution. I have done that a lot. But there are tons of "how-to"s for that everywhere else but here. The even simpler solution:

TL-WR710N by TP-Link

Before anybody says anything. You can use any other router, it just needs to support L2TP or PPTP on the WAN-side. That's all. I am sure there are many other devices as well which can do this. I know many D-Link can as well.

The WR710N is very versatile and thus the ideal router for this purpose. It support many VPN-providers out-of-the box, no special firmware needed, small, light and nice. Next Post settings.

This post for settings: http://notsoeverydaytechproblems.blogspot.de/2014/02/tl-wr710n-vpn-settings.html

How to tunnel all your internet traffic at home through a VPN connection

If you are reading this, you probably found your way through google here. The past years I ahve been looking for an easy way to tunnel all the internet traffic from my home device through a VPN connection to protect my privacy.

First of all, who is my provider? I am very happy with my VPN provider privateinternetaccess.com (PIA), it is very similar to those many others like:

• StrongVPN
• Hidemyass (HMA) 
• PureVPN
• ipVanish
• VPN4all

What are my "devices"? Apart from the regular desktop PCs, Laptops, Ultrabooks, etc there are smartphones (Android/Apple) but also gaming consoles (Xbox360, PS3) and mediaplayers like appleTV.

So what's the big deal than with VPN? Most VPN providers offer a special software to gain access to the VPN server. The software is often based on openVPN and is easy to install and use. After installing just enter username and password and you can surf anonymously (more or less). But here the problem starts.

1) The software is usually only availible for Windows, maybe Mac and Linux. Sometimes for iOS and Android as well. This actually covers most OS and you should be happy. Should. If there wasn't problem #2.

2) All providers only allow a limited amount of simultaneous connections to the VPN server with your username and password. Most providers allow one connection, others up to five (that's why PIA is great). So you may install the VPN software on many devices but are limited to just one to five connections. If this is not a restriction for you, well... 

3) The biggest problem is, that some devices aren't just capable of connecting to the VPn server as there is no software for them to do so. Take the Xbox360 for example. There is no way you can setup a VPN connection. Or appleTV. Or your favorite internetradio device. Or an older smartphone. Maybe your settop box. Whatever.

But why would you want those devices to use the VPN connection anyway? For me, as I live in Germany, I want to enjoy US-youtube or Netflix on my TV. I want to be able to access the Swiss XBox Live marketplace and use BBCs iPlayer on my Settop Box. All those services are restricted to special countries only and require you to have an IP address from UK Swiss or US. With a VPN-connection this is very easy, but there is no way you can set up one on your TV Xbox etc.

So ... To sum up the problems:

1. Usually only one VPN connection is allowed per account.
2. Some of the devices aren't capable of using VPN because it was never intended.

Solution for #1 would be buying more than one account (which doubles or triples the costs) or get a provider which offers more than one connection a time. But this gets expensive. And wouldn't solve problem #2.

To solve problem #2, just let's take a look at those "dumb" devices which can't handle a VPN on there own. Well, they CAN handle internet connection via wired LAN cable / with wifi to your homerouter. But wait ....

So what's your homerouter doing? Sitting there and serving internet to all your devices. It shares the internet connection to your house and all it devices. Usually it's connected to your cable modem/ DSL Modem / fiber modem whatever. Sometimes the modem is a part of the router. 

So what is the router makes the connection to the VPN server? It would just be one device connected to the server (problem #1 solved) and it shares the internet to all other devices, even the "dumb" ones (prob #2 solved). The great thing about this is, you don't even need to change ANY settings on all your devices if you want to use VPN. There is just one device you make the changes to: the router. And then every connected device is VPN connected through the router.

Great idea! Is it possible to set it up like this? Short answer, yes. How? Next post.