OpenVPN Support Forum

Alright, a little background: I'm currently a computer science student working on my undergrad degree. I'm in a senior seminar class and our group is working on a networking project that we came up with. The idea is to have two hosts communicating through a 'blackbox' which will manipulate packets to simulate things like packet loss and other fun things to see how they might affect network behavior.

So my question is: can I use the openvpn server as this 'man in the middle?' How might I go about filtering out packets individually or even change the information within them (if this is even possible)?

Any help with my problem (and indirectly, towards helping me graduate) would be greatly appreciated!

openvpn won't be of much help here - the black box should act as a faulty router/switch.