@Ryan  Thanks for replying. I did setup the Open VPN server according to the One router configuration. However, I do have more than one router in my system, but the 2nd router is really reduced to a network switch. Should I follow the two-router setup instructions? Here's my setup:

Xfinity Gateway (in bridge mode. No DHCP, no Routing) --> AXE95 (Wifi,DHCP Server,VPN) --> Linksys router (No DHCP, No Wifi, NO NAT).

Basically, the AXE95 is on my main floor and handles all the addressing. I have one cable going to the basement cascaded to the Linksys router, which is a switch point for several hard-wires computers and devices.

When I setup the VPN Server, I chose "Internet and Home Network". The internet portion of it works fine. I have NOT setup DDNS.

When I connect to the VPN from a client, I can use the internet. I can use Windows Remote Desktop to get to my PC. I can get to the router login page. However, I cannot ping any computers (despite being able to connect via remote desktop). I also can't see any shared folders.

Would it be better to just replace the router with a switch?

Thanks.

VikenK

  @VikenK

I have a similar issue, however I cannot connect to internet or my local resources.

  @ss1gohan13 

After some additional troubleshooting, I finally resolved my issues. My OpenVPN now works as expected. It turned out to be a bit more complex than I thought. Perhaps this will help you as well. It turned out to be a problem with Windows firewall and also DNS issues.

If you can't get internet or local resources, make sure the router's OpenVPN is set to "Allow Internet and Network".

After I did some more detailed troubleshooting, it turned out that I WAS able to ping IoT devices on my network (TV, Home Theater, etc) but I wasn't able to ping any computers, escpecially the computer with my shared folders. This made me suspicious of the Windows firewall. After turning off the firewall, I was able to ping the computer successfully. After some research, I ended up creating a custom Inbound Rule in the firewall to allow access from the OpenVPN IP addresses (10.8.x.x). I tried to add a link to the instructions but I couldn't post this message with a link (not sure why), so you will have to Google "how to create a custom inbound rule for VPN". 

That ended up solving the issue with being ale to ping computers on the network. You would have to do this on every PC with a shared resource that you wish to access.

The second problem was that I could not access the shared folder that I had mapped to my PC. That turned out to be a DNS issue. It turned out that if I mapped the shared folder using the IP address ( \\IP address\share name ), I was able to access the folder. If I mapped it using the computer name, I couldn't acccess the folder (\\Computername\share name). This indicated a DNS issue. Since I don't have a custom DNS server, the resolution to this  was to edit the "Hosts" file in Windows. The hosts file works like a poor-man's DNS Server for your local network, resolving IP addresses with Computer names. I had to do this on the client PC from which I was remote accessing the network (my laptop).

For this to work, I had to make sure that my computer wih the shared folders always had the same IP address. I used the DHCP Reservation feature in my router to reserve an IP address for the computer. Then I edited the Hosts file to match the IP address to the computer name. This ended up resolving my issues. This was simple enough for me since I had only one computer with shared folders. You would have to add a line in the hosts file for each computer or resource with shared folders.

The format to use was "IP address -tab- Computer name", so for me it was:

192.168.1.100       Computer Name

192.168.1.101       Another computer name

For more information, you can google "editing the windows hosts file" and find a multitude of instructions.

I hope this helps.

Viken K.