Routing or Config issue on laptop?

eviloreo

I am newer to OpenVPN and have come across an issue I couldn't figure out. I didn't even know how to search for it. So here is my issue.

I actually have two OpenVPN servers. One I host on a Digital Ocean droplet and one on my router at home. They both have the same issue.

Why I'm not sure if it's config or routing issue on the device is that it works perfectly from my Android phone, but in Winders and Linux it doesn't work as expected.

For the sake of this post, my public IP from my ISP will be 1.2.3.4 - I have mydomain.com pointing to 1.2.3.4

When I connect to the VPN on either server, all traffic is routed out the tunnel (as I want) EXCEPT mydomain.com (eg 1.2.3.4)
Both Linux and Winders have a route in the routing table that sends 1.2.3.4 over to the default gateway that I'm physicaly connected to at the hotel (192.168.1.1) instead of the VPN tunnel at 10.8.0.1
BUT if I use the local IP (10.10.10.5) it works. The issue is, apache has redirects that redirect to mydomain.com. which resolve to 1.2.3.4 and then are sent out the wrong gateway.

If I delete or modify this route, all traffic stops. I tried adding dns and route options to the config but it still seems to have this route in there.

The funny thing is, using my android phone and the openVPN app, it works fine. I can go to mydomain.com and everything works fine.

I don't normally travel with my laptop so I never noticed this issue until now. So basically to sum up, I can't access my public IP when connected to the VPN from my laptop. From my phone it works fine.

Am I missing something? Does this make any sense? I've been drinking!

Traffic

eviloreo wroteI've been drinking!

Figuring these things out over a snifter may not be the best approach :lol:

eviloreo wroteDoes this make any sense?

Yes.

When you use --redirect-gateway (See The Manual v23x) the first step on the client is to Create a static route for the --remote address which forwards to the pre-existing default gateway.

This means that your domain name, which resolves to your --remote address, is forwarded via the pre-existing default gateway. Otherwise the VPN packets would be sent via the tunnel and this would break the VPN.

eviloreo wroteif I use the local IP (10.10.10.5) it works. The issue is, apache has redirects that redirect to mydomain.com. which resolve to 1.2.3.4 and then are sent out the wrong gateway

You will have to configure apache correctly. I use a LAMP server over my VPN and publicly at the same time with no issue.

eviloreo wroteThe funny thing is, using my android phone and the openVPN app, it works fine. I can go to mydomain.com and everything works fine.

This sounds like your andriod client is not redirecting properly.

eviloreo

Thanks Traffic,

Apache is configured properly. Apache uses the DNS of incoming requests to direct you to the correct site (virtual hosts). The sites are private and firewall rules in place to only allow certain IP's to connect. That's why I am having issues. It's just routing and somehow the phone app does some strange stuff, but it works. I've worked around the issue by adding entries to my hosts file on my laptop. It's not pretty but it does the job. I'll probably set up a DNS server in the future and push that from openvpn config.

Thanks again!