OpenVPN on DD-WRT Tutorial

OpenVPN on DD-WRT

Install Correct Firmware

Make sure you have the Router installed with the correct firmware. In the upper right corner it should mention "vpn".

You can get the Firmware of your Router from the official site of DD-WRT. Be sure to check whether your router model has supported Firmware of OpenVPN (In our case we have used OpenVPN generic firmware).

http://www.dd-wrt.com/

Once you have installed OpenVPN based firmware, open the web interface. Usually the default address to access the web interface is 192.168.1.1, but if you have a different IP configured, access through that IP.

The first page after installation will ask you to provide a new username and password for the web interface.

Set the credentials you wish for this step.

Install Correct Firmware

Configuration of OpenVPN

Next, go to the Administration tab, and click on Commands as highlighted in the screen shot.

Configuration of OpenVPN

Download Script and Edit username and password

Now, download the configuration script file. You can download the script file from this URL.

http://www.tuvpn.com/downloads/tuvpn.sh

Now, edit the downloaded script in notepad, and edit your username and password as per the highlighted area in the screen shot. This username and password will work in the same way as if you have enabled “save password option” in OpenVPN.

NB: Please be sure that you have typed in your username and password correctly.
For example, if your username is: "tuvpn_abcdxyz", and your password is: "tuvpn", then the text line should be read as follows;

echo –e “tuvpn_abcdxyz\ntuvpn”> /tmp/ovpn/pass

Copy all the contents by pressing keys, Control+A

Download Script and Edit username and password

Copy and Pase Configuration file

Now go back to your router interface and paste the contents that you copied from the downloaded script in the COMMANDS box.

Copy and Pase Configuration file

Save Changes

Once you paste the contents, click on “Save Custom Script”

Save Changes

Execute Script

Now type "sh /tmp/custom.sh" (without quotation marks) in the Commands box.

Then click on “Run Commands” at the bottom of the page.

Execute Script

Execute Script

If successfully completed, you will see a message something like in the screen shot.

Execute Script

Reboot Router to connect OpenVPN

Now go to Management under Administration tab again. Click on Reboot router.

This will put the script changes in the startup nvram of the router and on reboot this will connect you to the OpenVPN automatically.

Please allow a few minutes (3-5 minutes) for the router to connect with the TUVPN server after Reboot.

Reboot Router to connect OpenVPN

Connected

Go to www.whatismyipaddress.com to confirm that you are connected with the VPN network.

Connected

Optional Changes

Please note that there are certain limitations to this setup such as:

- You cannot disconnect OpenVPN directly from the web interface

- You cannot make use of change node until next Reboot

- There is no manual process to Restart OpenVPN from the web interface if for any reason you become disconnected.

These tasks can be performed by making use of the Terminal window of the Router. For this you either need to use Telnet or SSH (Putty). We personally like to use Putty for connecting Terminals(SSH) because of ease of use. For this you will need to enable SSH first.

However if you want, you can use telnet to connect and make the changes.

Enabling SSH:

Go to the Services under the Services tab.

Optional Changes

Enable SSH access (OPTIONAL)

Select the radio button "enable" against "SSHd" service. And Save the changes.

Enable SSH access (OPTIONAL)

Putty Connection to Router (OPTIONAL)

Go to PuTTY and insert your router IP address using port 22.

In our case we have configured the router on 192.168.1.1 and SSH on port 22