Archive for the ‘Tutorials’ Category

New Astrill Router 2.0 Applet Released – Supports DD-WRT and Tomato Firmware Routers

Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

Astrill Router 2.0 applet now supports both DD-WRT and Tomato firmware routers. There are two ways to install Astrill Router 2.0 applet, first is via Astrill application, and second is via Astrill members website. Please note that requirements are the same, minimal build is 13309 (v24 or newer; Mega, Big, VPN, OpenVPN builds). Your DD-WRT or Tomato firmware must support OpenVPN for Astrill Router 2.0 applet to work, because the applet is just an enchantment for OpenVPN protocol with extra features for your router.

Installing Astrill Router 2.0 applet
To install Astrill Router 2.0 applet, login to Astrill Members section (https://members.astrill.com/), then Navigate to VPN SERVICES > Router Set up (https://members.astrill.com/router-setup.php). Enter your router’s IP address (192.168.1.1) and Firmware type (TOMATO), then click on Install button. In this example we will show you how to install Astrill Router 2.0 applet on Tomato firmware routers.Please copy the text below to clipboard, then go to Tools > System (http://192.168.1.1/tools-shell.asp) and enter this line into command, and then click on Execute button. Please note that this step is only required for Tomato firmware routers, on DD-WRT firmware routers Astrill Router 2.0 applet is installed straight away!


After you see “Installed successfully !”, that means Astrill Router 2.0 applet is install and ready to use. Astrill applet is installed under menu ‘Astrill VPN’ on the left. If you don’t see ‘Astrill VPN’ menu on the left, please hit CTRL+F5 or clear browser cache. You can also go directly to Astrill VPN by navigating to (http://192.168.1.1/user/cgi-bin/astrill.cgi).

Features in Astrill Router 2.0 applet

  1. Site Filter
  2. Device Filter
  3. Port Forward
  4. Check for Updates

Site Filter
Tunnel all web sites through VPN – use this mode for privacy protection. This mode may slow down your Internet speed.
Tunnel only these sites/Exclude these sites – specify a list of IP addresses, one per line. You can use IP blocks in CIDR format as well, e.g. 12.13.14.0/24.
Tunnel only International sites – use this mode only if you want to unlock geo-locked content, for example streaming TV. Local web sites will load directly thus their speed will not be affected. Please note, if you use this mode, it might take a few minutes for router to connect to our VPN server, depending on number of IP addresses allocated to your country.
Unblock sites – use this mode if you are located in China to tunnel only blocked sites through VPN. All other sites will go directly.


Device Filter
Device filter feature is very useful and many users have been waiting for this. You can connect your devices to your router via LAN or Wi-Fi, and then select which devices you want to go directly and which devices to tunnel through Astrill VPN. There are 3 options for Tunnel through VPN, which are “Tunnel all devices through VPN”, “Tunnel only selected devices”, and “Exclude selected devices”. If a device is not shown in the list, please make sure device is connected to the router and try to reload the page.

Port Forward
Forwards ports from VPN to a local computer connected to the router. This option is useful for P2P applications (for example BitTorrent).
For port forwarding to work, you need to enable port forwarding on this page as well as under Astrill Members section, VPN SERVICES > Port Forward  (https://members.astrill.com/port-forward.php).
If you wish to use P2P applications (for example BitTorrent), make sure you are using a server marked with a star (*), and make sure you have set the correct port number in your BitTorrent client to same port number found under VPN SERVICES > Port Forward  (https://members.astrill.com/port-forward.php).

Check for Updates
If there is an update available, you can update Astrill Router applet straight from your router without having to go thought all installation steps again.

If you have any suggestions please send us an email to support@astrill.com

Posted in News, Public Releases, Releases, Tutorials | 9 Comments »

What Router for OpenVPN ?

Thursday, March 3rd, 2011

Customers ask us every day what router do we recommend for use with Astrill OpenVPN DD-WRT application. So let’s summarize the most important things you should look at when choosing your WiFi router.

The first thing you need to ensure is compatibility with DD-WRT. The most important factors are chipset type (Broadcom, Atheros, Ralink, …) and flash size (2 MB, 4 MB, 8 MB, etc…). The list of supported devices by DD-WRT can be found here:

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices

Please make sure your device is listed there. You won’t be able to use Astrill on your router if your router doesn’t support DD-WRT.

To be able to install OpenVPN compatible DD-WRT firmware, your router needs at least 4 MB of flash size. Do not mix flash memory with RAM memory. Flash memory holds your firmware, thus it needs to be large enough. All Broadcom based routers with 4mb or more are compatible with OpenVPN. However, if you got just 4 MB, you can’t install DD-WRT with all features, you will need to use small version of DD-WRT with OpenVPN support.

We recommend a Broadcom based router with 8 MB or more of flash. This router will let you install full version (mega) of DD-WRT, thus you can use all available features.

The router we have used in our lab is Asus RT-N16. This is a Broadcom based router with clock speed of 533 MHz, 32 MB of flash and 128 MB of RAM. This is a beast among routers. You can check out its hardware specs here:

http://infodepot.wikia.com/wiki/Asus_RT-N16

Besides flash size, important characteristics of your router is CPU speed. OpenVPN is hardware intensive application (due to encryption and compression), thus the faster CPU you get, the faster speeds you can expect. In a typical scenario, your router will run OpenVPN and have a few wireless clients connected. So in order to handle it all perfectly, you need to have faster CPU.

If you have a router already, you can find a compatible firmware here:

http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/support/router-database

Just type a few letters like “Linksys WRT 160N” and it will list you available firmwares. If your only option is micro then you won’t be able to use this router with OpenVPN. DD-WRT with OpenVPN support needs at least router with 4 MB of flash.

If you have any questions or need a help to choose your DD-WRT compatible router, don’t hesitate to contact our support.

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Posted in Tutorials | 6 Comments »

Astrill OpenVPN on DD-WRT Web Install

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

Due to a lack of documentation, many features in Astrill are a secret, even for our support team. Only developers know all the secrets. We are planning to change this soon with a nice FAQ and manual.

It is possible to install Astrill OpenVPN applet on DD-WRT compatible routers without using Astrill application. Please note that requirements are the same, minimal build is 13309 (v24 or newer; Mega, Big, VPN, OpenVPN builds).

To install Astrill OpenVPN applet on your router, first navigate to the router web control panel using your browser, e.g. it could be located on http://192.168.1.1. Click on tab Administration->Commands. If you are prompted for a password, the default is root/admin (unless you have changed it). You will see a screen similar to this one:

In the Ccommands box type:

eval `wget -q -O - http://www.astrill.com/ddwrt/install/YOUR_EMAIL/YOUR_PASSWORD`

Please replace YOUR_EMAIL and YOUR_PASSWORD with appropriate values and make sure you don’t remove backtick (`). It’s not an apostrophe (‘).

Then hit “Run Commands” and wait a few moments. If everything went correctly, you will see the following screen:

If you have any error on this step, please double check your firmware version, make sure it has OpenVPN 2.0+ The best is to contact our support and we can schedule a remote desktop session.

Astrill is now installed on tab Status->My Page, so let’s go there. You will see the following screen:

Choose a server from the drop down box and hit Connect. We will be soon adding more servers to Astrill DD-WRT.

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Posted in Tutorials | 3 Comments »

Port Forward Feature (uTorrent Example)

Saturday, January 15th, 2011

Here is a tutorial how to setup port forwarding using Astrill Port Forward feature. This tutorial will show you how to do this for uTorrent, and you can do same thing with any other applications.

First, switch to OpenVPN mode and then enable the Port Forward feature from Astrill settings. If you do not see Port Forward feature under Settings, go to Help > Switch to Expert (this will show you all Astrill features).

Astrill will dynamically generate a ports for you. You can assign port forward for maximum of 3 applications.

Now run uTorrent application (You can run your preferred BitTorrent client of course, or any other applications which you want to port forward).

Change the port number of Bit-torrent client, that you generated with Astrill port forward feature.

Click OK to save your settings, now start your torrent download.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
For bittorrent to work, you must select a server which is marked with * (asterisks). Those servers are specifically configured to allow bittorrent. If you do port forwarding for any applications other than bittorrent, then any server will work.

You should know that, when you are connected to OpenVPN, that your external IP address is no longer your ISP IP address, but your OpenVPN IP address.

Normal Connection:
<Your ISP IP Address>:<Local Port>

Astrill OpenVPN Connection:
<Astrill OpenVPN IP Address>:<Astrill External Port>

After you are connected, and started downloading you can check open ports with a web page or a terminal (command line). We will show you how to check open ports with terminal.

Windows

netstat -an | find /i "listening"
netstat -an | find /i ":41157"

Linux & Mac

netstat -l
netstat -l | grep 41157

Easy does it! Have fun!

Windows
netstat -an | find /i “listening”
netstat -an | find /i “:41157″

Linux & Mac
netstat -l
netstat -l | grep 41157

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Posted in Tutorials | 4 Comments »

Share Astrill VPN with all your wireless devices

Friday, January 14th, 2011

If you got Windows 7 you can easily share your Astrill VPN connection with all your wireless devices (iPhones, iPads, Androids, other PCs etc…) using virtual WiFi hotspot support in Windows. You don’t need to run Astrill on your router. In fact you don’t need a router at all.

First, install Astrill on your Windows PC. Then go to Start Menu and type cmd. Windows will find cmd.exe console program. Right click on it and choose “Run as administrator“:

Type the following commands into Windows console:

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=Test key=password
netsh wlan start hostednetwork

We have used “Test” as new hotspot SSID, and password “password”. You should change these.

If everything went OK, the last line will show “The hosted network started”. In case you receive this:

The hosted network couldn't be started.
The group or resource is not in the correct state to perform the requested operation.

this means that your WiFi driver is outdated. The best is to use automatic update for the driver so Windows will try to find it on Windows Update. If Windows is not able to find newer driver, try to find a newer driver on manufacturer’s web site (Atheros, Intel, Realtek, etc…).

You can easily test if your WiFi card is supported using command

netsh wlan show drivers

If you see line:

Hosted network supported  : Yes

it means your WiFi card will work.

When Hosted Networking is started successfully, we need to tell Windows to share Astrill VPN connection. To do that, click on WiFi signal bars icon in your system tray (near the clock). It will show something similar to:

Click on “Open Network and Sharing Center” and then click on Change adapter settings:

If you see just a list view, the best is to switch your view to Tiles or Details. This way you will be able to identify network adapters easier:

We are looking for OpenVPN adapter. It will probably not have that name on your computer, but you will recognize it by “TAP-Win32 Adapter V9″. Right click on OpenVPN adapter and select Properties:

Click on Sharing tab, check box “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection”, from the drop down box select virtual WiFi adapter – we have renamed it to Virtual AP, thus name on your computer will be different. However  – you can easily find it on the previous screenshot – it has description “Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter”. Once finished, click on OK button.

The last step is to connect to Astrill VPN (OpenVPN mode of course). Once you are connected, OpenVPN adapter will change its state as well.

Now connect to network “Test” using password “password” from your wireless phones. All your devices connected to network “Test” will use Astrill VPN.

Unfortunately, if you restart your computer or put it into sleep, Windows will disable virtual Access Point. You will need to run just this command again:

netsh wlan start hostednetwork

There are a few programs which can automate all this and help you manage virtual hosted network much easier.  Two such free program can be found here:

http://virtualrouter.codeplex.com/

http://www.connectify.me/

The list of supported WiFi cards:

http://virtualrouter.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Supported%20Devices

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Posted in Tutorials | 14 Comments »