How to install a VPN on your router?

With today’s fast-growing internet population our personal information runs the risk of being breeched now more than ever before. Privacy and security are now going to need to become a priority in order to protect our data. One of the most effective ways to do this is through encryption by using a VPN.

VPN’s help to change your geographical coordinates, making it look as if you’re in the location of the current country you have your server set to. Hence cookies or anything similar will trace the VPN’s servers location instead of yours, which makes it even harder for trackers to pick up on your specific encrypted stream as there would be many others using the same server. This huge benefit can be achieved just by installing a VPN service on your device and activating it before you begin your next browsing session.

Centralized VPN configuration through your Router

Now when you’re ready to secure all of your devices you own, it might be a hassle installing a VPN on your router separately. This can be made easier by just installing it once on your router and all of the devices that are wirelessly connected to the router will get secured by the VPN automatically.

The entire network is supervised by the router, having a VPN on the router level means that the data will always be encrypted when it passes the LAN. All of the connected devices start using the VPN by default. Also, you don’t have to worry about the devices that are not supported by the VPN Provider.

Some folks might want to pay for a VPN router, which is not always required, as some standard routers can be configured to function with the VPN by the end-user with great ease.

The routers which work competently with a VPN are the ones that support DD-WRT or ASUS routers.

We are using the ASUS router in this tutorial of installing a VPN.

Step #1: Start with accessing the routers login page, which can usually be done by typing configuration IP (mentioned on the backside of the router or changed otherwise) in the URL bar.

Step #2: Log in with the credentials (mentioned on the backside of the router or changed otherwise). If your default credentials are not available on the back of your router check your router providers official website and look for the instructions to reset your router back to factory default. If you can’t find them there, give your router’s company support line a call.

Step #3: Once you enter the configuration page, a menu bar will appear on the left.

Step #4: Make your way to ‘WAN’ and adjust some background settings.

• WAN Connection Type: Select ‘Automatic IP’
• Enable WAN: Select ‘Yes’
• Enable NAT: Select ‘Yes’
• Enable UPnP: Select ‘Yes’
• Connect to DNS Server Automatically: No
• DNS Server 1: Type ‘208..67.222.222’
• DNS Server 2: Type ‘8.8.8.8’
• DHCP Query Frequency: Select ‘Aggressive Mode’

Step #5: Press apply and proceed.

Step #6: After this move on to the ‘VPN’ menu.

Step #7: After you select it, two options pop up for VPN setting; ‘VPN Server’ and ‘VPN client’. Choose a VPN client.

Step #8: After selecting a VPN client an empty VPN server list appears.

Step #9: Select ‘Add Profile’.

Step #10: A window to add a username and password appears. On the top, we have three separate VPN Security options.

PPTP provides the lowest security level but has less encryption overhead, making it faster.

On the other hand, OpenVPN is the most secure but proves to be slower due to the increased level of security. It is also helpful when striving to get past firewall restrictions.

Finally, L2TP is a better bargain amongst the above choices providing excellent stability of security and speed.

It’s up to you which protocol you wish to use, select your choice and proceed to the credentials.

Setting things with PPTP

1. Enter the description, then the URL of the VPN server and the credentials also provided by the VPN server.
2. Set the PPTP option to MPPE 128 meaning Microsoft Point-to-Point Encryption with a 128-bit key.
3. Save the credentials by pressing ok.

Setting things with Open VPN server

1. Enter initial description
2. Enter credentials
3. Import the OVPN file, provided by the VPN server, into setup credentials.
4. Press Ok

After entering the credentials hit ‘Activate’ under the ‘Connection’ of the service to initialize it.

The VPN server has multiple credentials saved but only one is active at a time. The router will ingress the internet, after which a VPN tunnel is created, after establishing a tunnel a blue checkmark will be displayed on the connection status confirming the activation of the connection.

The steps for Open VPN or PPTP Servers are the same. After the establishment of the tunnel make sure it’s working.

An IP leak test should be performed to verify if the displayed location is other than your current one.

Congratulations! You are now ready to browse the internet more efficiently and more protected using a VPN.