OpenVPN Performance

[n3tm4n]

Hi,

I am considering replacing my Debian 8 Virtualbox hosted Turnkey Linux based OpenVPN server running on a with a Raspberry Pi based solution.

To that end, has anyone done any performance testing with OpenVPN server running on a Raspberry Pi ?

[MJKPi]

Have been trying for over a week to get an openvpn server set up with a Raspberry PI 2, started over three times and used 2 different tutorials. I get stuck at the first step after installing openvpn. The first thing I believe is to get som example security certificates. Anyway the command alway fails with a "no such directory error". I am thinking that the updates to the Raspberry Pi OS have gotten ahead of the tutorials around. So until I find out what I'm doing wrong I think I will give up for a while. Been fun playing with the command line again.

[n3tm4n]

I've now got it up and running - would it be helpful if I did a bit of a write up ?

It was kind of in my mind to do one anyway, but if it would be useful I'll look to get it done sooner rather than later.

Let me know...

Jon.

[karrika]

Some kind of performance figures would be nice to have.

In the past I also found out that Windows OpenVPN works only using "tap" mode. In "tun" mode you can have exactly one Windows machine connected to the OpenVPN server. Perhaps things have changed.

As Raspberry Pi's are often behind firewalls the most useful scenario is running the OpenVPN server on an Amazon cloud instance. Perhaps EC2. The Pi's would then connect as clients. This would allow all the Pi's to see each other while keeping the VPN hidden from the Internet.

There is even a t2.nano instance available for $0.0065 per hour. And if no-one is online the system goes to sleep and does not cost anything. The nice thing is that you get a free IP address that is publicly available. An affordable alternative for a DIY VPN system. 16 cents/day for 24/7 usage.

[malicious]

Copying a file through the tunnel with a Pi2 as the server and both ends on my LAN, I get about 38 megabits/s with the default TLS(DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA), digest(SHA1), and cipher(BF-CBC) settings. The copy was done to and from RAM to eliminate disk I/O as a factor.

Using my normal settings - DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384, SHA512, and AES-256-CBC respectively - I get about 28 megabits/s.

Edit: Forgot to mention that the Pi2's clock frequencies are all stock. One core is pegged at 100% during file transfer so the CPU appears to be the bottleneck in my tests.

[rayburn]

I've now got it up and running - would it be helpful if I did a bit of a write up ?

It was kind of in my mind to do one anyway, but if it would be useful I'll look to get it done sooner rather than later.

Let me know...

Jon.

I would be very grateful if you could do a write up please. I am attempting a similar project and am having difficulty so would appreciate any tips!

Thanks in advance.

[2ells]

Hi, I've just spent the last couple of weekends setting up OpenVPN server on my Pi running OSMC and writing it up on my blog here ...

https://2ellsblog.wordpress.com/2016/02 ... n-osmc-pi/

If you are installing on Raspian I also reference a couple of good tutorials (these are what I followed initially but found for OSMC there were a couple of differences, hence why it so long!). These were ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-33548728
http://readwrite.com/2014/04/10/raspber ... b-browsing

Hope that helps

[DarrenHill]

I hit the same issue with the rearranged file structure in Jessie compared to Wheezy (which most of the tutorials seem to be based on). I found the link below, which is a set-up for Jessie which I have working fine on a Pi1 B+ under Jessie-Lite now.

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/ ... n-debian-8

It is working for general browsing and lighter stuff, although the speed drop compared to a direct connection is noticeable and does cause problems for more intensive applications.