TAP on Android

brendan

a new OpenVPN client has emerged in the google play store, and it claims to support TAP without rooting your android device. is this legit, and is there any possibility of this functionality making its way into the offical openvpn client for android?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=it.colucciweb.openvpn
...
Now with IPv4 tap device support without root permission!

brendan

can this be confirmed as possible or as snake oil?

The Johan

Hello brendan,

There is nothing new about this. In Android it is nowadays possible to use the built in VPN API which doesn't require root rights to add it. I don't know this 'new' client but it offers nothing significantly different from the official OpenVPN clients for Android that I can see.

brendan

the point of my question is the use of a TAP interface on a device that has not been rooted. i have the official openvpn client running on android and cannot use TAP. i have had to stand up a second instance of openvpn on my box and put a TUN config together. i want to use only TAP for all my clients, and i am looking to see if that is now possible on android.

bird333

OP have you tried it? I certainly hope it works. I would take TAP with only root. 🙂

brendan

i have not, but my brother was interested in it. he may be running it. i will be seeing him later and will ask if he did buy the client. i have run 3rd party openvpn clients that require rooting the device, and did allow for TAP interfaces, but since i have not rooted my current device and actually like the official client, i was hoping to find out if TAP was possible.

bird333

brendan wrotei have not, but my brother was interested in it. he may be running it. i will be seeing him later and will ask if he did buy the client. i have run 3rd party openvpn clients that require rooting the device, and did allow for TAP interfaces, but since i have not rooted my current device and actually like the official client, i was hoping to find out if TAP was possible.

What 3rd party apps did you run that required root?

brendan

i talked to my brother, and he did buy the app from the the play store, and it does work. how the app is doing TAP without being rooted, i dont know.

as for the 3rd party app i ran, it was OpenVPN Installer and OpenVPN Settings by Friedrich Schäuffelhut. i ran these on a rooted phone and could use the TAP interface included in the kernel of the modded ROM.

dredkin

Unfortunatelly, it looks like OpenVPN Installer app from Friedrich Schäuffelhut does not work now.
1. Installer fails since mount command syntax has changed in the recent Android versions (we need

mount -o rw,remount

instead of

mount -o remount,rw

);
2. If copied manually, openvpn binary cannot be run, Android blames that it was compiled without

-fPIC

option.

So until someone compiles openvpn with -fPIC for Android we only have one possbility - paid OpenVPN Client app which really can connect to TAP OpenVPN services even without root.

plaisthos

You need PIE instead of PIC. I have some binaries someone wanted for an old rooted device:

http://plai.de/android/2018-06-13-standalone-openvpn.tar.gz

and

http://plai.de/android/2018-06-14-standalone-mbedtls-openvpn.tar.gz

As for TAP without root, it is possible to write an emulator for it (see also my FAQ from OpenVPN for Android) but so far I haven't had the motivation to do it (no personal need and no one wanted to throw money at me to implement one 😉)

clevenger23

is there any word on if OpenVPN is going to add TAP? This should now be possible with 8.0 My company does use a TAP VPN with another private provider and it works on both of my android phones.

plaisthos

I don't see anything in the API that would allow this. Where did you get that Information that this should be possible?

[deleted]

any update about this?

ordex

majunia96eloco wrote any update about this?

not sure what update to expect.

As plaisthos said:

I don't see anything in the API that would allow this. Where did you get that Information that this should be possible?

and

As for TAP without root, it is possible to write an emulator for it (see also my FAQ from OpenVPN for Android) but so far I haven't had the motivation to do it (no personal need and no one wanted to throw money at me to implement one 😉)

dredkin

majunia96eloco wrote any update about this?

As I've said above, for now the only option that works on Adnroid is a "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=it.colucciweb.vpnclientpro" app (the name of app was changed) which can connect to TAP servers even without root.
It utilizes the approach plaisthos mentioned and emulates TAP above standard Android VPN API.
The app itself is free, but possibility to connect to TAP is a paid option.

Somewhere on the Net I've seen a pirated version of this app, which claims to be free, but I didn't try it and cannot say if it is really cracked or just a virus.

FrankJ30

Can someone make it work?

botox81

Found a moded version of VPN Client Pro app which seems to be working with TAP on non rooted Android. Here is the download link and virus total scan link