So I just got a brand new Asus router, which has a VPN server with one click type setup for both OpenVPN and WireGuard. I primarily bought it so I can see my home cameras while away from home.
I easily setup OpenVPN, which works perfectly. I can connect to my home network on my phone from anywhere, whether on cellular or another wifi network. I can see my cameras, connect to my smart A/C and when I surf the internet an IP lookup shows my home IP address. No issues at all.
I keep hearing great things about WireGuard being faster, more secure, easier, etc. So I tried to setup WireGuard…and I can’t get it to work. I have it on my phone, click to active it, it says active…and that’s it. I can’t connect to my cameras, my A/C, the internet, nothing. I tried changing the DNS address like I’ve seen some guides say, still nothing.
Anyone have any idea why OpenVPN works perfectly, but I can’t get WireGuard to work even though it says active and seems to connect?
It’s probably nothing to do with WireGuard itself but rsther your setup. Do you have DDNS setup? Is your IP dynamic? Have you checked to ensure you’re starting a handshake and getting a reply back from the server on your mobile device? These are much needed pieces of information before you start blaming a very secure, reliable, audited, and trusted protocol that people such as myself use reliably every single day.
Have you tried exporting the WireGuard server settings from your asus router and opening the file in a text editor? I’ve had the same issue and when I peeked inside the config file, I realized that the Asus WireGuard server was using incorrect IP address/domain name that my router had. As I have DDNS (from no-ip.com) configured on the router, WireGuard sever picked up it’s domain name (`Endpoint = all.ddnskey.com:51820`) instead of the real domain name of the router.
After I fixed the confix file manually and then re-imported it in my Android WireGuard client, everything started to click…
I searched Google and found the same problem as yours. I used the same client configuration on Windows, and the WireGuard client software was able to connect perfectly. However, when using the same configuration on the Asus RT-AX56U router, the status shows as connected, but no data is being sent or received.
There seems to be an issue with how the router firmware handles WireGuard
And yes like what you said about openVPN, it works perfectly on my asus router. I spent the whole 2 days right now trying to figure out
I’m in the same situation, I have asus xt8 open vpn works okay, tried to setup WireGuard and had to fiddle a lot. Sort of works but it doesn’t like reaching certain internal servers which is the entire reason I setup the VPN.
Make sure your router firmware is current. Contact ASUS; they may have done something funky in their implementation, or have a requirement that’s not obvious.
If you don’t find your answer on reddit check over at snb forums. There is a ton of Asus router information.
I’m not blaming it, it’s just baffling to me that OpenVPN works perfectly fine, but WireGuard doesn’t. I don’t have DDNS because I have a static IP address through my ISP. I’m not sure how to check for a handshake, I open the app on my phone, toggle the inactive switch, it says activating for a split second, then it says active. I can see in the data sent section that it appears to be transferring data as the number keeps going up.
So in other words, I should just stick with OpenVPN if that works fine for my situation?
Did you do any particular fiddling that got it to at least semi-work? Nothing I do seems to work at all.
On the app make sure when you connect that your seeing data sent and received. If it only says data sent but nothing for received then there’s something wrong with the server since it isn’t replying.
It’s possible the WireGuard community might be biased toward WireGuard. I think it’s fair to say WireGuard is barely out of beta. Possibly not even out of beta.
I changed the dns setting on my iPhone setting to a local dns sever I have. I also made sure to have access intranet enabled. That was about it. Although it’s not working that well.
It only says data sent. Any idea what could be wrong with the server? I mean it’s literally just a one click setup on the Asus router so I’m not sure how I could have possibly done it wrong.
Make sure the server itself is running and enabled. Im not familiar enough with Asus Routers to know how to check this but you can also try rebooting it if all else fails and see if that fixes it.