Synology router 2600ac + VPN client?

Hardware Hub Networking
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Hello Level1Tech community,

I’d like to preface with these few words for my first post:

Despite being a total newbie, I really enjoy watching your channel on youtube.
Your insights and advice are super informative, although I get lost in translations sometimes.
Thank your for sharing your knowledge, it’s useful, informative and quite addictive to learn stuff.
You guys are nectar to my ears!

I have recently purchased the RT2600ac router after doing some research.

I really enjoy this router and think it’s doing a great job coupled with my 1 Gbp/s internet connection.

After viewing your pfsense tutorial, I’d like to push my router to the next level by protecting my data from my ISP. I do not want comcast to sell it to marketers.

I am leaning more toward subscribing to a VPN client, than pfsense.
The main reason is the size of a build router as well as poor knowledge from my end.
Hence I prefer a dedicated wireless router
I’ll need to test some VPN servers speed before i can make a decision.

Can the RT2600ac be a VPN router associated with a VPN client to manage
some devices ( apple tvs, tablets, smart tv…) ip adresses?

If yes is there a thread you’d recommend, I am truly a newbie in networking.

If no I fear I might have to sell it for an other router, which is a bummer since I also want to buy NAS DS218+.

Ultimately I might be interested in a new router with ddwrt capability and/or build a nas using freeNas.
Your recent media server video made me want to try it, but again i might want it to be more a consumer NAS small form factor than the pro server shown in your video.

I have created a graphics to help you understand my current home setup.

home_basic_networking-01
home_basic_networking-01.jpg1921x1081 273 KB

home_basic_networking-02
home_basic_networking-02.jpg1921x1081 310 KB

thank you in advance

1 Like
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Yes the RT2600ac can be configured as a VPN client, however it is reportedly pretty slow, particularly with OpenVPN.

https://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?p=450288#p473872

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Thank you very much Ruffalo.

Well it seems my research wasn’t thorough.

Are there any router you’d recommend based on my setup?
I live in a duplex and I share my connections with 4 roommates, + 15 devices, and I’d like a robust wireless router if possible

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That router is perfectly robust, it just can’t handle an OpenVPN connection at high speeds. Most consumer-grade home routers can’t. Personally, I run my VPN client on a Linux machine and setup routes on my router to pass data through that. But if you want a more elegant solution, pfsense with a relatively recent core i3 would do it.

Wireguard will fix this once it’s more mature and widespread. But sadly we just aren’t there yet.

5

It seems it’s mostly browser traffic you want to hide, in that case an even simpler solution would be a SOCKS proxy over SSH, if you don’t mind exposing the serving computer to the internet. Just change Port, strictly specify AllowUsers and if you’re especially skittish, set PermitRootLogin to no in your sshd_config file, and you’re kind of safe. Also, don’t use an easily guessable username overall : )
Also you’d need to portforward in your router too, unless you use the router as the proxy.

DigitalOcean has a guide for most use-cases: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-route-web-traffic-securely-without-a-vpn-using-a-socks-tunnel

BTW: What software did you make that sketch in? Looks awesome!