You can ping your Android device through an OpenVPN tunnel, but can't ping from the device to your LAN?

published Jan 06, 2023

The fix might be easier than you think!

You can ping your Android device through an OpenVPN tunnel, but can't ping from the device to your LAN?

You have your OpenVPN server working correctly.  You've installed the OpenVPN VPN app on your Android device.  You know for a fact, because you saw it through adb shell, that your phone has the correct ip route show table alls — and the OpenVPN log confirms the routes are right. You can even ping your Android device from your LAN!

Yet, no matter how hard you try through adb shell, you can't ping a single address of your LAN.  tcpdumping your VPN server's VPN interface shows that no pings from the Android device are coming through the VPN interface.

What gives?

  • Go to your VPN settings, and open tab Allowed apps.
  • Toggle the slider VPN is used for only for selected apps to on.
  • Restart OpenVPN on your phone.

Thank me later ;-)