Blue Iris

I have a Netgear Nighthawk X10 AD7200 / R9000 WiFi router. I have setup DDNS and enabled VPN Service in the Router, downloaded the OpenVPN configuration files and OpenVPN client installer for Windows 10 and OpenVPN Connect App for Android. I installed the OpenVPN Client on my Windows 10 PC and the OpenVPN Connect App on my Google Pixel 2 (Android) smart phone and imported the corresponding .ovpn files.

The OpenVPN GUI is running in the PC System Tray. I go right click Connect and the OpenVPN Connection (Client) window pops-up then I see lots of status indications scrolling on the window (more on that below). Then I go to my cell phone and start OpenVPN Connect and tap on Connect. The Connection never succeeds and eventually times-out after several minutes.

One of the many messages that scrolled on the PC OpenVPN Connect status window is as follows:
"Tue Jan 05 15:38:01 2021 WARNING: No server certificate verification method has been enabled. See http://openvpn.net/howto.html#mitm for more info"

Do I need to setup some kind of keys or use a password from my cell phone? I did not see that mentioned in the Netgear R9000 User manual?

You have a double VPN setup, I believe.

If you enabled VPN correctly on your router, then everything that connects to your router will use the VPN, and you do not need a VPN installed on your Windows 10 and Phone.

1. Disable the VPN on your Windows & Phone.
2. Clear IP Cache/DNS.
3. On both your Windows & Phone, open browser and type "What's my IP" into google search. They should both come back the same.
4. From a browser (Windows or Phone), go to "https://www.whois.com/whois/" and enter the IP address from prev step. Is the the location of the VPN?

Mike - Thanks for your input. Of course my PC is connected to my router via my home LAN (via Ethernet). When I am in my house my phone is normally connected to my router via WiFi. The purpose of the VPN (and the VPN Connect App) is when my phone is not connected to my router via WiFi it allows me to connect directly to my Home LAN. Thus I didn't take your advice to "Disable the VPN on your Windows & Phone".

... However still in a strange way you did help me ... All of my testing of the VPN setup has been right here in my house. For some reason it had not occurred to me to turn off the WiFi on my phone. I just did that and much to my astonishment, I am now able to connect to my VPN using my phone (OpenVPN Connect App is now working)! I am able to fire up the BlueIris web server and UI3 is working great!

I knew that eventually I would need to test it without WiFi but I made a bad assumption that the VPN connection could be made while I was still on WiFi. Live and learn.

Thanks again.

Mike - you did point-out correctly that I misunderstood the function of an OpenVPN Client. I had installed that on the Windows 10 PC that is hosting BI5. I am realizing now that there is no need for that, because, as you said, once the VPN service is setup on my router, everything on my home LAN is accessible . I shutdown the OpenVPN Client on the PC and then I verified that I can still connect to the VPN with my cell phone, when away from home (no WiFi) , using the OpenVPN Connect App on my cell , then accessing my BlueIris UI3 webserver.

I now realize that the OpenVPN Client program for PC/Windows is for tunneling-in to my home network from some other remote location, eg using a laptop when traveling, etc. Should have been obvious to me.

Hey bbdude,

You did well to get OpenVpn working on a pc

I tried that first and it was horrendous to set up so I gave up. Then I bought an Asus router that could run it with Merlin firmware, and all I had to do was turn it on and get the ovpn file to my device. So simple in comparison.

Armed with my two NIC BI5 set up, I feel fairly safe. I do know that this has stopped the port searches, as I used to see them in the BI5 log, and now they are no more.

OpenVpn on my mobile and router allows me to remotely access all of my servers: Emby, TVMosaic, BI5 etc so its a good one for me.