PureVPN on DDWRT router

On this page we are going to provide our tutorial for installing PureVPN on your DDWRT router.

 

We would like to thank the original author of this review at www.punj.co.uk for granting us permission to publish this particular blog content. The original contents of the review can be found at http://www.punj.co.uk

 

Hopefully you will have researched and gained informative knowledge on what a VPN connection can offer. Also you are probably encountering problems in satisfactorily installing PureVPN on your DDWRT home wireless router. If that's the case then we maybe able to help in your installation and set-up.

PureVPN offers a great VPN service, with some great apps to get you up and running on your device's. However we found using and setting up their service on our DDWRT router quite problematic. Their support files seem out dated and buggy, and you will note the problems people are encountering as mentioned within the comments on the support pages. We had great difficulty in using their DDWRT applet and OpenVPN router setup .

With our set-up you will require minimum steps to get you up and running. In brief you will run our script which will automatically provide most of the settings required within your router for a UDP OpenVPN setup. Hopefully after the script completes all that is required by you is to input your PureVPN username, password and UDP server address.

So lets get started in the installation of setting PureVPN on a DDWRT router with a OpenVPN configuration.

It is assumed that you have the following items

• A good satisfactory working internet connection.
• DDWRT compatible router with OpenVPN support, and 8MB flash memory with the latest firmware for installing the OpenVPN configuration. We used a TP Link Archer C7 V2 within our test.
• A premium PureVPN account subscription.

You will also need to hand the following.

• Your PureVPN username which usually looks something like "purevpnxxxx"
• Your PureVPN password

• The PureVPN UDP server address you intend to connect to. The PureVPN server addresses can be found at https://support.purevpn.com/vpn-servers   Ensure that you choose the OpenVPN UDP servers. In our setup we used ukl1-ovpn-udp.pointtoserver.com    We prefer to use the IP of the server address. You can find this by pinging the server and using the IP address shown by the ping reply. In our case this was 172.111.157.130

Now lets start our set up

Step by Step Configuration

1. log into your DDWRT router and factory reset your router.
2. Install minimum settings to ensure that your router has internet access. Make sure that you test that your internet connection is satisfactory and working.
3. Log into your router and go to the DDWRT router menu. This is usually done by typing 192.168.1.1 within your browser and providing your router username and password. 
4. When within the DDWRT set-up pages Navigate to "Administration" and then go to "Commands".
5. Within the "Commands" box type or paste the following text code  
   eval `wget -q -O - http://www.punj.co.uk/vpn/purevpnbp.swi`                                                     and then press "Run Commands" tab. This will install the PureVPN settings within the OpenVPN router software for you
6. When the above code script completes the router will reboot. Please wait until this step completes.
7. Now go back into the DDWRT router set-up page and navigate to "Services" and then "OpenVPN" page and then enable the "OpenVPN Client" tab. 
8. We will now provide our PureVPN server address, username, and password within the "Open VPN client". Hopefully all other entries will be pre-configured eg port, Tunnel Device, Encryption etc
9. Now in the "Server IP/Name" type the PureVPN Server address or IP of the PureVPN server. In our case this was 172.111.157.130  or ukl1-ovpn-udp.pointtoserver.com 
10. Next go to  "User Pass Authentication" and press this. In "username" and "password" box  provide your PureVPN username and Password. In our setup our username was something like purevpnxxxx.
11. Now press "Save" and "Apply Settings" to save our configuration.
12. Finally re-boot your router.

You should now be able to go back into your router to check your VPN connection.

You can do this by going to the router setup pages and navigating to "Status" and then the "OpenVPN"  page.

You should see "connected" and the VPN connected IP addresses.

You should also go on to the internet and navigate to an IP look up site to check that you are connected to your PureVPN connection. In our test we used http://whatismyipaddress.com/

If you encounter problems then carry out the following checks

• Check that you have correctly entered the PureVPN UDP server address
• Check that you have used the correct PureVPN username. It should be something like purevpnxxxx
• Ensure that you firewall is correctly configured and not blocking the VPN connection
• If you are using dns masq go to "Services" > scroll down to "Dns Masq" and then within the "Additional DNS Masq Options" enter the following (Dns Servers)

server=208.67.222.222

server=208.67.220.220

server=8.8.8.8

Now press "Save" and "Apply Settings" at the bottom of the page.

•  Are you sure that your DDWRT router is compatible and meets the minimum specifications.
• If all fails don't give up. Request support from PureVPN. After all you do have a premium subscription which entitles you to support from them.

Hopefully we have helped you to be up and running now. We have tried this method on many occasions with different router manufacturer and hardware so are very confident that it will help you.

Finally don't forget that this is a very basic setup to get you up and running. You should contact PureVPN support to carry out further tweaks and adjustments to your setup.

We hope our readers have enjoyed our project and will come back to www.punj.co.uk for our views on more technological projects and products.

If you have enjoyed our latest tip or wish to discuss this further then please leave your comments and suggestions below.

We are providing the contents here for educational purposes and offer no guarantee that this process will work for you. On this note you should be aware that by carrying out the processes here you do so at your risk.