I sometimes have to work from home, which means using VPN. Cisco VPN works quite well, but it’s just not the same as being on the corp network.

Using a spare DD-WRT router (ASUS WL-520GU) running the VPN build of DD-WRT, I set up a persistent VPN connection. Now when I connect my work PC to this router, it behaves just like it’s on the corporate LAN.

How to do it

1. First, get the recommended DD-WRT VPN build from dd-wrt.com and flash the router.
2. Connect the VPN router’s WAN/Internet port to your home LAN.
3. Make sure your router’s LAN IP doesn’t conflict with any subnets in the corp network or your existing home LAN. I used 192.168.133.0/24.
4. Add your corporate domains and DNS servers to the dnsmasq config (Services tab)
   
5. Next, customize the script at the end of this post and paste in the Administration>Commands section. Click Save Startup.
6. Reboot the router. Wait about 5 minutes (it takes a while to start up) and verify you can ping/access servers on the corp LAN.
7. Done!

This isn’t exactly the most stable solution, but it works and I haven’t had any disconnects so far. Also much cheaper and much less trouble than setting up a site-to-site VPN using a real Cisco router.

One sticking point is that from now on any changes to router config (DHCP, WiFi, etc.) will require a reboot. Otherwise your VPN tunnel will die and won’t come back for some reason.

Also, speeds are limited by the router’s processor. Mine is only a 266MHz ARM, so IPsec puts quite a load on it, meaning I can only sustain speeds of about 2Mbps – sadly still better than some of our WAN sites that are using T1 lines.

Script

mkdir /tmp/etc/vpnc
rm -f /tmp/etc/vpnc/vpnc.sh
#Create the VPNC startup script in /tmp
echo '
#!/bin/sh 
vpn_concentrator="your.vpn.gateway" ##enter ip or hostname of your Ipsec vpn concentrator
vpn_keepalive_host1="some.server.corp"        ##enter the ip or hostname of a computer that is only reachable if vpn connection is established.
vpn_keepalive_host2="other.server.corp"        ##enter the ip or hostname of a computer that is only reachable if vpn connection is established.
vpn_groupname="groupname"  ##enter the group name here
vpn_grouppasswd="grouppass"   ##enter the group password here
vpn_username="user"       ##enter your username here
vpn_password="pass"        ##enter your password here

#--do not edit this--
#Written by Alain R. 28.Sep.2007
#updated by Matthieu Y. 2012-09-24
vpnc-disconnect
rm -f /tmp/etc/vpnc/vpn.conf
#Create vpnc config file
echo "
IPSec gateway $vpn_concentrator
IPSec ID $vpn_groupname
IPSec secret $vpn_grouppasswd
Xauth username $vpn_username
Xauth password $vpn_password
" >> /tmp/etc/vpnc/vpn.conf
# allow dnsmasq to forward dns replies for LAN subnets
sed -i "s/stop-dns-rebind//g" /tmp/dnsmasq.conf
killall dnsmasq
dnsmasq --conf-file=/tmp/dnsmasq.conf 
#Check if we can ping the IPs specified above
pingtest1 () {
 ping -q -c1 $param1 >> /dev/null
 if [ "$?" == "0" ]; then
       echo 0 #reachable 

 else
	echo 1 #not reachable
 fi
}

pingtest2 () {
 ping -q -c2 $param2 >> /dev/null
 if [ "$?" == "0" ]; then
       echo 0 #reachable 

 else
	echo 1 #not reachable
 fi
}
doloop=true

while [ $doloop==true ]; do
			param1=$vpn_keepalive_host1;

			if [ "`pingtest1`" == "0" ]; then
				sleep 300
			else
				param2=$vpn_keepalive_host2;
				if [ "`pingtest2`" == "0" ]; then
					sleep 300
				else
					doloop=false
					vpnc-disconnect
					vpnc /tmp/etc/vpnc/vpn.conf --dpd-idle 0
					sleep 1
					if [ "`pingtest1`" != "0" ]; then
						sleep 10
					fi
					tundev="`ifconfig |grep tun |cut -b 1-4`"
					iptables -A FORWARD -o $tundev -j ACCEPT
					iptables -A FORWARD -i $tundev -j ACCEPT
					iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o $tundev -j MASQUERADE
					sleep 9
				fi
			fi
done

return 0;
' >> /tmp/etc/vpnc/vpnc.sh
chmod 700 /tmp/etc/vpnc/vpnc.sh
/tmp/etc/vpnc/vpnc.sh&

References:

• http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/VPNC
• http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=509683

One Response to “Automatic vpnc connection on DD-WRT”

1. Raul says:

   2013-01-07 at 06:04

   Google Chrome 23.0.1271.97 Windows 7 x64 Edition
   Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.11 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/23.0.1271.97 Safari/537.11

   Hi Matthieu
   I test these script and before it the Alain from dd-wrt site but doesn’t work in my WAP54g linksys router

   I’m ussing the Mini DD-WRT version becasue I hace only 2MB of RAM. Do you think that maybe these is the issue and doen’t work under mini DD_WRT versions?

   Too, I’m not sure if it’s related with WAP54G, because these hardware it’s access point and not a router. However, the DD-WRT funcionality there is the same. I test wirh 3 diferents APs (WAP54G in all cases) and the tunnel doen’t start..

   Do you think that I can test something to check if the tunnel it’s up and maybe I have some problem regarding router or something like that

   thanks in advance!!

   BR and happy new year!

   Reply