I use the virtual private network software, known as OpenVPN, to connect from my laptops to my home every day. There are several things I’ve noticed:
- Most offices and many coffee shops will block the default port 1194 (UDP).
It is also a very popular port for naughty people trying to see what you have on your network. If you’re not running a web server, set it to port 80 or 443 (TCP) as these ports are normally accessible. If these don’t work, try other ones like 21 (TCP) which is normally used for a FTP server. You will likely see better throughput on some ports than on others due to ‘traffic shaping’, aka giving network priority to certain applications.
- Comcast blocks ports 21,80,443 for UDP and but not for TCP
- The network packets that are sent through the vpn tunnel can become fragmented, split into two or more packets to make them fit into the vpn network packet. Let’s increase the size of the vpn network packet to reduce the network packet fragmentation
- tun-mtu 1500
- mssfix 1400
- Compression. This is a little more subjective than you would think. If most of your activity is based on data streams (e.g. watching video, listening to music), then the compression may cause delays (think extra buffering / stuttering). My advice is to try with it on and try with it off.. which seems to be more responsive to you?
