Configuring Asus RT-AC87U for Private Internet Access VPN

£15 · 25 Aug 2015 at 16:39

I've just bought the Asus RT-AC87U router and notice it comes with the option of setting up a VPN client, without the need for any custom firmware. I currently have PIA running on my laptop, but with a house full of devices, I thought 'protecting' them all by getting the router to handle it would be a good thing. I'm just a little lost on how to do it.

It looks like I choose the OpenVPN option.

Download some files from PIA:
OpenVPN Configuration Files (Default) (under Advanced OpenVPN SSL Usage Guides section) - https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/client-support/

Upload the ovpn file for my chosen location (UK) to the router, along with the security cert (ca.crt) - (Need to tick a box to do it manually?)

Add my username and password.

Save and activate.

Is that about the long and short of it?

£15 · 26 Aug 2015 at 21:57

After activating the VPN I lose all internet access.

£15 · 27 Aug 2015 at 14:22

I'm not trying to, that was the point of me starting the thread - asking how to make the router do it for all devices on my network. I'm not sure what the other guy is doing, but it's confusing me and my quest for help.

With the VPN activated my devices connect and get assigned IP addresses, but when I try to connect to the web all I get is page cannot be displayed - or whatever Edge says now...

£15 · 1 Sep 2015 at 22:02

Thanks for the info. I'm ok up to and including the blue tick - then it appears to kill access to the web.

Sorry if I came across badly in my previous post.

£15 · 31 Oct 2015 at 15:13

I've just installed a custom Merlin firmware in the vain hope it would improve matters somehow. Everything is installed and configured, but again I lose access to the web on all devices when the VPN is activated.

There's something very strange going on here...I thought I'd lost access to the web, but it appears I haven't, not completely.

I am currently, somehow, browsing the OCUK forum, but I can't open a page to it by typing the url or using my favourites bar. I thought it may have been cached pages, but I'm visiting sections I haven't been to before. If I click on the logo at the top I get 'Page unreachable'. I can't open any search engines, or any of my other weblinks, e.g. hotukdeals, banking.

How can I have access to the web and not have access at the same time?

I can access my network shares (NAS) as usual.