Trying to setup Yunohost at home with njal.la vpn

Support
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1

What type of hardware are you using: Other(?)
What YunoHost version are you running: 12.1.37 (stable)
How are you able to access your server: The webadmin
Are you in a special context or did you perform specific tweaking on your YunoHost instance ?: no tweaking, just the defaulot installation

Describe your issue

Thanks for the great project!
I have got a BeeLink AMD minipc and installed Yunohost on it a few months ago, but struggling to get the internet connection set up properly.

First I tried a few DynDNS services, but couldn’t get that to work, so I decided to setup a VPN connection, from njal.la, with a dedicated IP.

Inside the YH webinterface I installed the VPN client and tried to upload the .ovpn file configured by njal.la, but it doesn’t allow me to. It asks me for the IPv6 prefix, and their public DNS is at 2001:67c:2354:2::53 (dns.njal.la) If I understand correctly the “53” is the IPv6 prefix part and the rest the IPv6 address? In any case, trying to save the VPN config it doesn’t allow me.

In short, I’m not sure whether this VPN service works, whether this VPN client app is the way to go, or whether I am configuring it incorrectly or something else.

Your suggestions will be very much appreciated. TIA.

Share relevant logs or error messages

I am not allowed to post links…
paste yunohost org / kapupukuwa

paste yunohost org /raw/jikokohusu

2

Hi wout1,

Welcome to the forums!

Too bad the configuration doesn’t work out immediately.

I haven’t used VPN in front of my server, but I’ll take a go at answering your question :wink:

The 53 in the address is the interface ID. When getting tired of typing 0’s, IPv6 allows to, once per address, use :: to say “Just fill up with zero’s”. The ‘::’ hardly ever is used in the prefix (the first part of the address), but quite often in the tail (interface id).

In this case, 2001:67c:2354:2 is the prefix, and ::53 is address of “their computer”

Your first link is empty on my side, jikokohusu shows the log of the diagnostics.

I tried to have a look at their documentation, I found https://dns.njal.la/ to show the IPv6 you mentioned, as well as the IPv4. Apart from that, not so much..

I think the VPN service works. As I said, I never used a VPN in front of my server, so I didn’t install a VPN client app.

Looking at apps.yunohost.org/catalog?search=vpn , I see VPN Client, is that the one you installed? I’d say it is the right tool for the job, and an OpenVPN file should be enough.

I was thinking about the error you got, about the IPv6 prefix. I’d say it would be in the configuration; so: either

  • There is no IPv6 in the ovpn-conf, and Yunohost expects it (and asks you), or
  • There is no IPv6 on Yunohost, while OpenVPN wans to connect to it, and asks you.

I don’t know if either of the two is correct, but:

  • if IPv6 is enabled on Yunohost, you could try disabling it and retry
  • If YPv6 is disabled, the other way around
  • Alse see if Njalla provides configurations with or without IPv6

Does Njalla provide only OpenVPN access? OpenVPN has been on the backburner a bit, many VPN providers switched to Wireguard. If you can’t get OpenVPN to work, and Njalla provides another option you could try that.

A totally other option is to create a VPN yourself, using a cheap VPS. For 5 euro per year there is quite a bit of choice already.

Going back to your first attempts: dynamic DNS should work as well.