Connecting OpenVPN Sites with Conflicting IP Subnets

This article describes how to map multiple subnets that have the same IP address range using OpenVPN so that they can be accessed from a central site. For example 192.168.0/24 is a very common addressing scheme and you may wish to be able to access all the systems on those networks.

This is the desired outcome, Site 0 is “us”:

Site 0 - 10.1.1/24
Site 1 - 192.168.0/24 -> 10.10.1/24
Site 2 - 192.168.0/24 -> 10.10.2/24
Site 3 - 192.168.0/24 -> 10.10.3/24

So we can now access 192.168.0.33 on say site 2 as 10.10.2.33.

To get this to work we have to use 1:1 NAT and you should note that this means that some things simply will not work, see notes below.

This is not the only way to do this. I have chosen to make the remote sites (Sites 1-3) run the “server” and run the “client” at Site 0. You can do it the other way around.

Preliminary

You need to pick two ranges for this scheme. The first one will be the mapping subnets and the second one will be for OpenVPN client to server connections. I have already chosen 10.10/16 for the mappings and I am going to choose 10.254.100/24 for connections. The first choice gives you 253 mappings before you need to use say 10.11/16 and the second choice gives you 64 /30 subnets to link it all up.

Examples before NAT:

Site 0 to Site 1:

           <--------             (OpenVPN)            ---------->

10.1.1/24 --- 10.254.100.2/30 --- INTERNET --- 10.254.100.1/30 --- 192.168.0/24

Site 0 to Site 2:

           <--------             (OpenVPN)            ---------->

10.1.1/24 --- 10.254.100.6/30 --- INTERNET --- 10.254.100.5/30 --- 192.168.0/24

Note

Notice how the addresses on the right are still non unique - they are still always 192.168.0/24.

We use NAT to make each remote site unique:

10.1.1/24 --- (OpenVPN) --- INTERNET --- OpenVPN_Interface - NAT - 10.10.1/24 <=> 192.168.0/24
10.1.1/24 --- (OpenVPN) --- INTERNET --- OpenVPN_Interface - NAT - 10.10.2/24 <=> 192.168.0/24
10.1.1/24 --- (OpenVPN) --- INTERNET --- OpenVPN_Interface - NAT - 10.10.3/24 <=> 192.168.0/24

Site 0 throws packets to a non existent destination (the mapping subnet) down the tunnel that corresponds to the desired Site 1,2 or 3 and the NAT at the other end translates to and from that mapping and sends the result back to Site 0.

Recipe

In the following examples, only necessary changes from default are given. You will still have to pick suitable transports (UDP by default) and ports (1194 by default) I generally use UDP and a non standard port eg 1200. Ensure you put in a suitable firewall rule on the servers’ WAN interfaces to allow the inbound connection VPN. I recommend that this be restricted to the WAN IP of Site 0. At both ends you will need to add a suitable firewall rule on the OpenVPN interface for traffic to pass.

At Site 1-3

OpenVPN server

At each remote site, create a new OpenVPN server:

Server Mode:          Peer to Peer
Description:          Link to Site 0
TLS authentication:   Tick "Automatically generate a shared TLS authentication key."
IPv4 Tunnel Network:  <link subnet> eg 10.254.100.0/30
IPv4 Remote networks: <IP range(s) at Site 0> eg 10.1.1.0/24

If Site 0 has multiple IP ranges then specify them all in IPv4 Remote networks, comma separated. After saving, copy the key (“2048 bit OpenVPN static key”) that was generated to the other end (see below)

1:1 NAT

You will need one of these for each network range at Site 0:

Interface:          OpenVPN
External subnet IP: <mapping subnet, first IP> eg 10.10.1.0
Internal IP:        LAN net
Destination:        Network, <IP range on Site 0> eg 10.1.1.0/24

Not the default gateway

If this system is not the default gateway for the site then you can use an outbound NAT rule on LAN to ensure that replies from the clients return via the OpenVPN tunnel. Without this, the systems at Sites 1-3 will reply via their default gateway because they will be unaware of the Site 0 network. Another option is to put a suitable route on the site gateway via the LAN address of the OpenVPN system but this will introduce an asymmetric route and which will potentially break things even more than the double NAT.

At Site 0

OpenVPN client

Create a separate OpenVPN client for each remote subnet (Where examples are given they are for Site 1 ):

Server mode:            Peer to Peer (Shared key)
Server host or address: <ip.add.re.ss of the other end>
Description:            <NAME mapping_subnet link_subnet> eg Site 1 10.254.100.0/30 10.10.1.0/24
Shared Key:             <Copy from the server for the site link>
IPv4 Tunnel Network:    <link subnet> eg 10.254.100.0/30
IPv4 Remote networks:   <mapping network> eg 10.10.1.0/24

Notes

  • SIP and RTP for example will be tricky

  • DNS will also not work very well under this scheme unless you create some form of translating DNS server, perhaps PowerDNS and its LUA module might be able to do this.

  • Anything relying on DNS eg web links that don’t use the passed host name but use the built in name

  • Don’t forget to put suitable firewall access rules on the various OpenVPN interfaces