VPN via specific port

[theratuk]

Hi all!

I'm using eduroam a lot where I work (in a university) and I found out they are increasingly blocking ports which is really f**king annoying if you want to use cpanel on your webhost (2083) or do ssh, or any of the many other perfectly legitimate things I need to do on a daily basis.

I have a good VPN service configured in my network connections but this also has problems connecting on this eduroam connection.

Weirdly, like my FTP, it seems that the VPN can initially connect (and my FTP with filezilla connects) but then can't do any traffic (?!)... e.g. my FTP will connect and then fail to retrieve directory listing (just hangs)... so somehow I guess port 20 (for ftp) and whatever port the VPN uses (same?) are blocked somehow for certain types of traffic (?!).

So my question...

Is there a way I can set the VPN to go through a specific (unblocked) port perhaps? Like 80 (http)? I just want normal internet to do what I gotta do and none of this controlling business. I'm not an expert at networking and the options in the mint networking interface are not super clear to me, so hence need to ask.

It's a very annoying probably anyway. Also, for what it's worth, I understand that this *might* be violating T&Cs of the University/eduroam but I'm not (personally) worried about that. If they want to get sh*tty with me I'm happy to argue my case and face any ramifications. I don't use much bandwidth at all, I just need a real internet connection to do my work (ftp, ssh, web server admin, etc).

Thanks!

[phd21]

Hi "theratuk",

Welcome to the wonderful world of Linux Mint and its excellent forum!

It would help to know more about your system setup. If you run "inxi -Fxzd" from the console terminal prompt, highlight the results, copy and paste them back here, that should provide enough information.

I am not familiar with this "eduroam" WiFi service beyond what I have just researched.

I do not think it is a problem with your VPN so much as it is with your Firewall(s). I have never had to specify to my firewall(s) or to other applications which ports any of my VPN servers use for them to work properly. You do however have to tell firewalls to allow certain ports for various applications, like FTP ports, SSH ports, etc... I have not had to tell my firewalls about website hosting cpanels ports for them to work either.

You can always temporarily disable the Linux software firewall to see if that may be the problem. And, since this is already an encrypted service, have you tried accessing it without using your VPN?

Perhaps these links will help
Firewall Configuration Guidelines eduroam-US
https://www.eduroam.us/node/98


eduroam(UK) Technical Specification | Jisc community
https://community.jisc.ac.uk/library/ja ... cification

Participants’ ORPSs, if operating a Home (IdP) service, MUST be reachable from the eduroam(UK) National RADIUS Proxy Servers (NRPS). ORPS SHOULD be configured to listen on UDP/1812 and SHOULD NOT be configured to listen on UDP/1645. ORPS using RadSec MUST be reachable from the NRPSs on TCP port 2083.
Participants using RadSec MUST use X.509 certificates provided by the GÉANT eduPKI service [9] to identify their ORPSs.

Good luck and keep us posted on your progress...

Hope this helps ...