Win 10 connection made but no access to LAN; Android works fine

Frankenscript

Hi folks,

I've got OpenVPN running on my Asus AX92U Router; its firmware is up to date. I generated the client.ovpn credential file and imported it to the OpenVPN app on my Android phone; after connecting (when my phone is away from my LAN, using either cellular data or a wifi hotspot), I've got a fine connection to my LAN and for example I can use a Remote Desktop app on the phone. All resources are available.

However, when I've installed the OpenVPN client on my relatively boring i5 laptop in Windows 10, and imported the client.ovpn file, although the OpenVPN client software reports connection established, I'm not able to access any resources on my LAN; the main things I want to do are remote desktop (via MS RDP) into various servers there, or occasionally print something to the printer there. Nothing works. Remote Desktop doesn't see any of the computers on the LAN, nor is the printer seen.

I've tried:
1. REbooting the remote client computer ( :-) )
2. Reinstalling OpenVPN and re-importing the client.ovpn credential
3. Changing my client's assessment of the wifi internet connection from public to private
4. Briefly turning off firelwall for private connections
5. Connecting my computer to my phone hotspot instead of a wifi hotspot, just to try a different source internet connection and to avoid conflict with both my home LAN being 192.168.1.xxx and the remote LAN my laptop is on also being a 192.168.1.xxx address

None of these has enabled me to remote into my PCs or access any resources at the home LAN. I'm guessing I've missed some sort of basic step in setup or usage and would appreciate any insights for setting things right.

I switched to OpenVPN on recommendation of some friends that do similar things; I find its performance to be preferable to other ASUS router based VPN solutions for some of my applications (accessing security cameras... load times on my Android are great with OpenVPN). It's just odd that I can't get my laptop to connect to any resources on the LAN; this worked fine with the prior VPN (PTPP) I was using to connect to my LAN.

Thanks all!

manustar

i have the same problem

Frankenscript

Misery loves company, I guess!

Since I'm remote for another day or so, I'm reluctant to do too much to mess with it. I did log into my router and re-export the config file (using my android device that connects just fine). Taking the new client.ovpn file and installing it in OpenVPN Connect on my computer did not fix the issue.

Frankenscript

I think I figured it out. Go into the TAP Network adapter and hard-code the correct IP address for your gateway (for me it's 192.168.1.1) and see if that works. Go into the IPv4 properties to do this.

TinCanTech

Please don't hard-code your gateway, unless you want to leak from your VPN.

Frankenscript

As a follow up on this, when I got home from a trip I went into the router VPN setup and created a new set of settings, mostly the same but I did this time choose Respond to DNS and Advertise DNS to Clients selected (last time they were set to No).

I exported this new credential and tried it in another computer, and it seemed to work fine; I was able to RDP from this computer (which was connected to my phone wifi hotspot) into my LAN no problem.

The new certificate also works on my main laptop that I've been using that had a problem before, but I'm not sure whether it is working due to remembering the gateway I put in or due to the new certificate settings.

xiss_gm

So, I have the same issue - the version of the software will not push the DNS servers on OpenVPN Connect 3.3.1. The issue is (if you check the logs) that the correct "netsh interface ip 'Local Area Network 2' DNS 192.168.1.1" is not executed by the Windows client. Or you could hard code the DNS servers to the TAP adapter. Please note that nslookup will not use the internal DNS servers unless you hard code them.

put this in the client config before import:
dhcp-option DNS 192.168.1.1
dhcp-option DOMAIN yourrouter.lan

I use split-tunneling, so I do not route through my VPN server - just access resources on its network.

Frankenscript

xiss_gm wrote So, I have the same issue - the version of the software will not push the DNS servers on OpenVPN Connect 3.3.1. The issue is (if you check the logs) that the correct "netsh interface ip 'Local Area Network 2' DNS 192.168.1.1" is not executed by the Windows client. Or you could hard code the DNS servers to the TAP adapter. Please note that nslookup will not use the internal DNS servers unless you hard code them.

put this in the client config before import:
dhcp-option DNS 192.168.1.1
dhcp-option DOMAIN yourrouter.lan

I use split-tunneling, so I do not route through my VPN server - just access resources on its network.

Thanks for these details. I appreciate the follow up!