OpenVPN Support Forum

I want to buy an ASUS RT-N16 router and install DD-WRT, OpenWRT, or a similar firmware along with OpenVPN and Shorewall. Then, install the key files for OpenVPN given to me by my VPN provider and route all our network traffic through the VPN except our Xbox 360.

Is it possible, and if it is, where do I start?

If it's not, I guess I can I do

sounds doable via the same method this guy used to solve his different problem.
it comes down to the fact that linux supports multiple routing tables
viewtopic.php?p=8059#p8059

Hello experienced OpenVPN users...

Here at my home office I have OpenWRT running on a Soekris net4501 providing routing and firewall services. I am considering using the OpenVPN package available in OpenWRT to run a VPN endpoint (which I would be learning to do for the first time) on the Soekris net4501. I do not expect to demand anything more of this configuration than endpointing a single VPN at a time to provide a single user (me) access to a data server, and maybe an email server at some point, on the home office LAN via the internet.

As I poked around a bit to see what I might expect out of this effort I discovered an experiment documented at http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~jain/cse567-08 ... index.html which reports a 100% utilization of the router's CPU @ 200Mhz therefore limiting the data throughput. This leaves me wondering how well my Soekris net4501 with a 486 CPU @ 133Mhz is going to handle even the pretty light VPN usage that I describe above.

Question #1
I have an Intel Pro/100S adapter available, which (according to http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/a ... erview.htm) has an encryption coprocessor integrated into the ethernet controller. Would I be able to better the VPN data throughput by using this Intel Pro/100S adapter in the Soekris net4501 for the WAN interface? If so would I have to do something special to configure OpenVPN to utilize the integrated encryption coprocessor?

Question #2
The experiment documented at the URL above used a Linksys WRT54GL router, which (if it had not been modified) had 16MB RAM. My Soekris net4501 on the other hand has 64MB RAM. Should (in theory anyway) this factor of 4x more RAM available in the endpoint machine provide any significant relative advantage to the data throughput?

Really interesting paper here. I'll have to read it at length when I have a chance. Just as a general response to your question about cpu requirements, it depends. For awhile, all I did was route voip calls over a vpn on my router. Interestingly, my router cpu usage didn't break 3% (525mhz SoC) while I was on a call, since all it really had to do is relay packets to the sip provider. If you plan on doing heavy web traffic, like video streaming or bittorrent, you're requirements will probably be higher than 200mhz. My router also had 64mb of ram, which DD-WRT would never come close to saturating unless I was transferring a large file over the network. That's just my personal experience using OpenVPN on a router. I couldn't say whether having an encryption co-processor would make any difference.