remote_host error

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cogninaut
OpenVpn Newbie
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Mar 24, 2023 12:33 pm

remote_host error

Post by cogninaut » Fri Mar 24, 2023 1:23 pm

Hello everyone

I'm trying to configure openVPN connect for split tunnel use.

in Windows the following configuration on the client side works fine

route remote_host 255.255.255.255 net_gateway
route X.X.X.0 255.255.255.0

Please note that the problem here is that the openvpn server is inside the ip range I'm trying to tunnel to .

However on Android it seems I cannot use remote_host ( error remote_host : Invalid argument ). The connection succeeds but the Android phone has no connectivity.

I suppose I could cut the IP range I am trying to tunnel to into a lot of tiny pieces to avoid including the openvpn server’s own address.

Can anyone help with the more elegant solution here?

cogninaut
OpenVpn Newbie
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Mar 24, 2023 12:33 pm

Re: remote_host error

Post by cogninaut » Thu Apr 06, 2023 10:08 am

After a couple of days of debugging I can now see that my initial assessment was wrong.

Openvpn connect has no problem excluding the vpn server address in split tunnel (or full tunnel for that matter) from being routed through the tunnel itself. The remote_host route as decribed in the OP still fails but it seems the vpn server address exclusion is handled -successfully - elsewhere.

In my case the problem is that I was using the android setting “private dns mode” which tries to route all dns traffic to another external server. If that traffic is sent through the tunnel (in full tunnel mode) everything works fine. When in split tunnel mode however this traffic is supposed to be routed outside the tunnel where it is blocked. I am guessing this is some kind of anti-leak measure – which I found, as of yet, now way to disable.

Is “block-outside-dns” involved here? Is it on by default and is there a way to disable it? Any help is greatly appreciated.

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