Trying to setup an openvpn connection

Question

Ok, so ive seen a few tutorials for setting up openvpn, but was having no luck getting a working connection. i managed to get a connection working by importing an .ovpn file and letting ubuntu do it all for me, adding password and uname myself. I now have a working connection but am unable to view sites like piratebay, so its obviously not actually working. Where could i be going wrong?

Output of ip route with VPN connection is:

default via 10.12.0.117 dev tun0 proto static metric 50
default via 192.168.1.254 dev wlan0 proto dhcp metric 600
10.12.0.1 via 10.12.0.117 dev tun0 proto static metric 50
10.12.0.117 dev tun0 proto kernel scope link src 10.12.0.118 metric 50
169.254.0.0/16 dev wlan0 scope link metric 1000
[VPN_IP] via 192.168.1.254 dev wlan0 proto static metric 600
192.168.1.0/24 dev wlan0 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.1.70 metric 600
192.168.1.254 dev wlan0 proto static scope link metric 600

Answer 1

I'm not an expert on networking, but I can think of a couple of things:

1. Your traffic is still being routed directly through your ISP.

   There are two default gateways listed at the moment (192.168.1.254/wlan0 directly through your ISP and 10.12.0.117/tun0). I would think that a request to access a site (e.g., Piratebay) would go through the VPN connection (tun0), but that might not be the case.

   When connecting to a VPN, I use ipleak.net for testing. Go to the page and check if your visible IP address belongs to your ISP or your VPN. If it's an ISP address, then it makes sense that you cannot access ISP-blocked sites.

   Try manually removing wlan0 as a default gateway (you must do this after you've established a connection to the VPN so that the "default via tun0" entry is already there):

   sudo ip route del default via 192.168.0.254

   (to add it again after you've dropped the VPN connection, run the same command but use add instead of del)

   If this changes your visible IP address to your VPN, it means this was the problem.

2. The VPN connection is not working.

   If you drop the "default via wlan0" rule (as above) and you lose all connectivity, it probably means you didn't connect to the VPN properly or the VPN has some problems (beyond your control), which would explain being unable to establish connections to websites via the VPN.

3. Your VPN also blocks certain sites.

   If your visible IP address belongs to your VPN, and you see no signs of your ISP address on ipleak.net, it might be the case that the VPN is also blocking access to certain sites, such as Piratebay. In this case, I guess you'd need a different VPN.