Problems with private VPN - can't access internet while active

VPN
1

I have a TP-Link Omada network setup at home, and the router has built-in VPN support. I set up an openvpn server on it.

When I connect to it from outside the house, I get an IP in the home subnet range (192.168.99.xxx) and can access my devices at home correctly. That part works great. However I lose all internet access. It doesn’t appear to be a DNS issue since I can’t access anything directly by IP (for example, I pulled up facebook’s IP before connecting to the VPN) either.

I CAN still access things locally on the network I’m connecting FROM (so when tested connecting from work, I could still access things on the work network as well as my home network, and ipconfig shows I have two connections, one with the work IP address and one in my home IP range.

Ideas what’s going wrong here?

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edit: solved it, so putting the solution here for others. In the Omada VPN setup, there’s a setting for DNS server. I’d tried both the pihole address and public DNS like 8.8.8.8, but what it really wants is the IP of the gateway. When I put in 192.168.1.1 (the address of my omada router) it all worked fine. I could access devices on both networks by IP as well as reach internet sites.

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2

Can you ping external IPs from a command prompt? Does nslookup return an ip when tested?

Sounds like a gateway needs to be designated or a rule set to allow it out the gateway. (sorry I’m not terribly familiar with tp link so unsure what options they have or include)

3

Solved it, I’d misunderstood some of the settings. Solution is in the OP.

4

If you enable split tunneling you can avoid going out your home network. Otherwise look at the rules for traffic being allowed out. You may not your VPN subnet as allowed traffic outbound to internet

5

Having the same issue. About to try your solution. The help prompt suggest the IP pool should not overlap with existing VLANs. I hd set mine to the next available 192.168.x.0/24. Wondering if that’s putting clients in no man’s land. Is your 192.168.1.0/24 one of your normal VLANs?