Connecting to OpenVPN through firewall.

scottmark

I'm trying to connect to OpenVPN through a firewall. I have SSH access through the firewall, but port 1194 is blocked.

This is on an iPad, running iOS 8.1.

I tried using port forwarding via SSH on local port 6868 (as SOCKS. see below), but this does not work. OpenVPN Connect reports:

Proxy error : on 127.0.0.1:6868: HTTP proxy unexpected EOF: reply incomplete

The server doesn't even see a connection.

This same method works fine in the Windows world. But my searches are very frustrating:

1. SOCKS proxy is not supported by OpenVPN Connect for iOS.
2. Use HTTP proxy. It is very easy. Here is how to set it up.. (instructions)
3. But there is NO information about how to get that HTTP proxy server running on iOS! Or on the server.

ssh - very easy to set up port forwarding using vSSH HD lite from Velestar.
If I set it up as a dynamic port forwarding, I get the above EOF error.
If I set it up as local port forwarding 6868 -> (serverIP port 1194) I get

Proxy error : on 127.0.0.1:6868: HTTP proxy header parse error

The server sees a connection and reports "Bad encapsulated packet length from peer (17231)"

Is there some technique for tunneling OpenVPN Connect iOS through a firewall?

I've searched. The terms "proxy" and "firewall" are so prevalent (on OTHER boards) that one cannot search for them on IOS.

Thanks in advance

Traffic

scottmark wroteIs there some technique for tunneling OpenVPN Connect iOS through a firewall?

The normal approach is to use proto tcp-* and port 443 ..

Most firewalls will allow that to pass unless the firewall is more sophisticated and can detect non-HTTPS packets.