How do I configure the Peplink MAX BR1 firmware version: 8.3.1

Product Discussion Pepwave MAX
1

I was able to set up connectivity and everything is working great, except for one scenario.

I moved my home network, configured and running on an ASUS RT-AC68U firewall router. It’s configured for my LAN WiFi, shares a LAN drive via USB, and provides inbound internet access using OpenVPN. I have had this behind both AT&T and Xfinity WAN firewall/routers before without any issues.

I am trying to configure the Peplink to act as a passthrough for the OpenVPN client to the WAN port on the ASUS router, which is plugged in to the LAN 1 port of Peplink router (I tried port 2 as well in case there was something specific for port 1). The WAN port of my ASUS is a 192.168.50.x address assigned by the PepLink router LAN.

Even though I’ve tried different configurations (Port forwarding off of one/both WAN/Cellular IP) combined with an Inbound Access rule for the OpenVPN client to the WAN IP address of the ASUS router (192.168.50.x), the client will not connect.

If the firewall is configured correctly, it’s not clear what IP address the OpenVPN client should be using to try to connect. When, from inside my network, I go to https://www.whatsmyip.org, I get a different address (172.58.#.#) than I see in the Peplink admin console for the modem (33.#.#.#). With my previous ISPs I used the address from whatsmyip.org as the public address for the OpenVPN client to connect to.

Anyone have any ideas what I’m missing?

2

I cannot speak to most of your architecture (I am insufficiently familiar with OpenVPN to claim any expertise there). However, since your WAN IP address as seen from the BR1 is 33.X.X.X and the one presented to the world is 172.58.XX I expect your ISP is using carrier aggregation, they are NAT’ing your access. Thus attempts to connect from the internet to the 172.58.X.X address will not succeed. Connections have to be initiated from the BR1 to be established.

w.r.t.

There is a IP passthrough option you can enable (no messing with the policies) in the WAN connection setup.

Good luck.

Z

3

I have tried the IP passthrough as well and that didn’t solve the problem but thank you for the suggestion. You have given me an idea to try though where I might need to VPN into the Pepwave device and then use a different VPN to get through the ASUS.