PPTP server

This article relies on the following:

Introduction

  • This how-to describes the method for setting up PPTP server on OpenWrt.
  • Follow PPTP client to set up PPTP server and PPTP extras for additional tuning.

Goals

  • Encrypt your internet connection to enforce security and privacy.
    • Prevent data leak and traffic spoofing on the client side.
  • Bypass regional restrictions using commercial providers.
    • Escape client side content filters and internet censorship.
  • Access your LAN services remotely without port forwarding.

Command-line instructions

1. Preparation

Install the required packages. Specify the VPN server configuration parameters. 

# Install packages
opkg update
opkg install pptpd kmod-nf-nathelper-extra
 
# Configuration parameters
PPTP_POOL="192.168.6.128-254"
PPTP_USER="USERNAME"
PPTP_PASS="PASSWORD"

2. Firewall

Enable conntrack helper to allow related GRE traffic. Consider VPN network as private. Assign VPN interface to LAN zone to minimize firewall setup. Allow access to VPN server from WAN zone. 

# Configure kernel parameters
cat << EOF >> /etc/sysctl.conf
net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_helper=1
EOF
/etc/init.d/sysctl restart
 
# Configure firewall
uci rename firewall.@zone[0]="lan"
uci rename firewall.@zone[1]="wan"
uci del_list firewall.lan.device="ppp+"
uci add_list firewall.lan.device="ppp+"
uci -q delete firewall.pptp
uci set firewall.pptp="rule"
uci set firewall.pptp.name="Allow-PPTP"
uci set firewall.pptp.src="wan"
uci set firewall.pptp.dest_port="1723"
uci set firewall.pptp.proto="tcp"
uci set firewall.pptp.target="ACCEPT"
uci commit firewall
/etc/init.d/firewall restart

3. VPN service

Configure VPN service. 

# Configure VPN service
uci set pptpd.pptpd.enabled="1"
uci set pptpd.pptpd.logwtmp="0"
uci set pptpd.pptpd.localip="${PPTP_POOL%.*}.1"
uci set pptpd.pptpd.remoteip="${PPTP_POOL}"
uci -q delete pptpd.@login[0]
uci set pptpd.client="login"
uci set pptpd.client.username="${PPTP_USER}"
uci set pptpd.client.password="${PPTP_PASS}"
uci commit pptpd
/etc/init.d/pptpd restart

Testing

Establish the VPN connection. Use traceroute and traceroute6 to verify your client traffic is routed via the VPN gateway. 

traceroute openwrt.org
traceroute6 openwrt.org

Check your client public IP addresses.

Make sure there is no DNS leak on the client side.

Delegate a public IPv6 prefix to the VPN network to use IPv6 by default.

Troubleshooting

Collect and analyze the following information. 

# Restart services
/etc/init.d/log restart; /etc/init.d/pptpd restart; sleep 10
 
# Log and status
logread -e pptpd; netstat -l -n -p | grep -e pptpd
 
# Runtime configuration
pgrep -f -a pptpd
ip address show; ip route show table all
ip rule show; iptables-save -c
ip -6 rule show; ip6tables-save -c
sysctl net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_helper
 
# Persistent configuration
uci show network; uci show firewall; uci show pptpd
grep -v -e "^#" -e "^$" /etc/sysctl.conf
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  • Last modified: 2021/09/27 04:56
  • by vgaetera