I have media server which is using a commercial VPN that I got with my Usenet subscription. This is the only device on my home network that is using a VPN.

I tried to set up pihole on the same server with my router redirecting all traffic to it but couldn’t get it to work while the VPN was active. I’m now looking at getting a Pi 4B solely for pihole and considering running OpenVPN on my router so that my phone can run back to the pihole while I’m out.

My concern is that running the dual VPN setup may expose the traffic on my server. The commercial VPN does have an OpenVPN configuration that I could apply on my router but that’s not my preferred option.

Will my server traffic still be masked if I’m running a private OpenVPN configuration on the router?

  • kostel_thecreed@lemmy.ca
    4·
    1 year ago

    My primary question is whether having a VPN set up on my router will interfere with the commercial VPN on the server.

    No, it shouldn’t. It’s sort of a multihop, so you’d have pretty bad speeds, but if that doesn’t bother you then go ahead.

    I’d like the pihole to be available outside of my LAN. I believe I can do so by setting up an OpenVPN configuration on my router.

    What I would recommend is using a Pi or any computer and hosting a wireguard server on there. If you connect through wireguard (which is a faster and easier to deploy vpn protocol) and choose the local DNS, you will have access to the pihole. But, this is only a VPN straight to your home network, not masking IP or whatever else.

    If you want to mask IP and use PiHole, I am not the person to consult since I just use NextDNS when off my home network.

    Hope that helps.