This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

VPN Service with UTM recommendations?

With the recent House/Senate votes to allow ISPs to sell users web traffic, and the increased interest in VPN services, I'm wondering if anyone has already stood up a VPN router or is trying out the various services on their computers?

I have been using Tunnelbear on my phone sparingly at coffee shops, etc., but have always had trouble with it connecting when on my home wifi.  I never gave it much mind before, but am curious if something in the UTM is blocking it...and if I would encounter the same thing with other VPN services.

Anyone tried NordVPN, ExpressVPN, IPVanish...etc.?

Thanks,



This thread was automatically locked due to age.
Parents
  • I've picked up a device for firewall and will be installing Sophos UTM - I too had a similar Q.  Can the firewall device be configured so that it only connects to the external VPN services like Express/NordVPN etc. So all outbound traffic goes via the external VPNs. 

    Would you recommend any guides or discussions I read to figure out how to best achieve this?

     

    Thanks,

Reply
  • I've picked up a device for firewall and will be installing Sophos UTM - I too had a similar Q.  Can the firewall device be configured so that it only connects to the external VPN services like Express/NordVPN etc. So all outbound traffic goes via the external VPNs. 

    Would you recommend any guides or discussions I read to figure out how to best achieve this?

     

    Thanks,

Children
  • Hi, and welcome to the UTM Community!

    No, it's not possible for the UTM to be a client.  In the 10 years I've been active here, not one person has done this successfully. See the post from Louis-M above.  I have some clients that do this with site-to-site tunnels.

    Cheers - Bob

     
    Sophos UTM Community Moderator
    Sophos Certified Architect - UTM
    Sophos Certified Engineer - XG
    Gold Solution Partner since 2005
    MediaSoft, Inc. USA
  •  Thanks for the kind reply. I have a spare Netgear Router that I could flash with DDWRT. I've read that DDWRT does support OpenVPN and so connecting to an external VPN can be setup. So now,  I have a couple of questions

    1) I put up a UTM box upfront. Let it handle the routing etc. Do I place the DDWRT flashed router in front or after the UTM box? 
    2) Does this setup solve for both UTM and external VPN connection? Are there any discussions/how-tos I could read that could help me get this right.

    Thanks

  • FYI, I've come to the conclusion that a consumer level router is not powerful enough to handle a VPN connection such as the VPN services that are all being considered. I got it working with an ASUS RT-N66U, and the speed was dreadfully slow comparably.  6Mbps vs upwards of 90Mbps using the available clients.  I do think the mini computers most of us are using for the home UTM, ie, my Zotact CI323 NANO would be powerful enough if Sophos supported it.  pfSense supports it, but I'm invested now enough in Sophos that for now I'm not considering it.

    But, I have also had the question about network location...so curious Bob your thoughts.

    For now though regarding the VPN service question...I'm likely to stick with the clients vs a dedicated router/computer.

  • , thanks for the performance note. I used to have a RT N66U until it broke down, now I have a R7500v2 - seems to be far more powerful. Do you think the chipset in the R7500V2 Netgear might be faster? 

    I'm in the same line of struggle - get a Firewall + VPN. Would prefer Sophos, but looks like only Pfsense supports both out of the box on a single box :)

  • I don't know about the Netgear, but I would presume it is more powerful then the RT-N66U.

    Give it a shot and let us know.

    You can do a trial with AirVPN.  That is the one I got the router working on.