Data sim in D-Link dwr-920 will not allow connected devices to connect to Expres

[jiffy176]

Any ideas please.

I use expressvpn on my EE android phone absolutely fine.

I have an EE data sim in a D-Link 920 mobile BB router.

This connects fine but I cannot get any connected devices such as phone, win 11 laptop etc to connect to the VPN.

Any ideas.

Thanks

[mikeliuk]

Hi @jiffy176 ,

Is VPN passthrough configured?

https://eu.dlink.com/uk/en/-/media/consumer_products/dwr/dwr-920/datasheet/dwr_920_datasheet_eu_en.p...

[jiffy176]

Thanks for that, I had no idea I had to set one up 

Any idea how I set one up?

Thanks

[mikeliuk]

Hi @jiffy176 ,

Typically what I do is search for the manual online, e.g. "D-Link dwr-920 manual pdf".

https://eu.dlink.com/uk/en/products/dwr-920-wireless-n300-4g-lte-router#support

https://media.dlink.eu/support/products/dwr/dwr-920/documentation/dwr-920_man_reva1_1-00_eu_multi_20...

p.47/PDF p.51

You only require the below VPN client settings unless you are running a VPN server yourself.

Firewall Setting
A firewall helps protect your network from external cyber attack and intrusions. This page allows you to alter your router’s firewall settings.
Clicking this toggle activates the IP Filter. For more
information see IP Filter on page 49.
Toggling the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) will expose a
chosen computer to the outside world by completely
disabling all firewalls and routing all inbound traffic
to the target IP.
Note: This feature is only recommended for advanced
users. Enabling this option will potentially expose your
computer to attacks over the Internet.
Allows clients to connect to their corporate network
or VPN using the PPTP protocol.
Allows clients to connect to their corporate network
or VPN using the IPsec protocol.
Allows clients to connect to their corporate network
or VPN using the L2TP protocol.
When enabled the DWR-920 will not
respond to pings from WAN.
Clicking this toggle allows access from WAN. This
setting may open your router to external security
threats and is not recommended for most users.
Click Apply to save changes.

[jiffy176]

Thanks, is found that but it doesn't give me an option to configure, still think it's a problem with the SIM.

I've contacted D link for help if there are any settings I can add or change.

[mikeliuk]

Hi @jiffy176 ,

Approaching D-Link is definitely the right call in this situation.

The other standard thing to try is to add another APN duplicating the current one but ensuring it is configured for IPV4-only instead of IPV4V6 as it has been found on these forums that some VPN services have an issue with how IPV4V6 is configured by EE (for example, my most recent test using a Netgear MR1100 showed only an IPv6 address was obtained on the WAN and no IPv4 address, due to production requirements, I wasn't able to investigate further).

I recommend to check with ExpressVPN what protocol you can use given that EE 4G LTE typically uses CGNAT (which you can check by looking at the WAN IP). Certain of the above protocols won't work with NAT and therefore won't work with CGNAT.

L2TP with IPsec definitely should work as I've tried this.

https://vpnpro.com/guides-and-tutorials/vpn-passthrough/

https://www.expressvpn.com/what-is-vpn/protocols/l2tp

[jiffy176 · Accepted solution]

Ok so I found the issue and have fixed.

The router automatically added the APN.

But in doing so added the word everywhere in lower case.

It needed to be added in uppercase.

The SIM was not connecting properly which was the problem despite allowing normal internet traffic through.

The APN settings don't have ipv6 it's a bit basic but once the case of everywhere was changed it connected up straight away and also switched straight over to 4g, whereas it would take an age before despite being in a good 4g area.

Thanks for all the help along the way. Got there in the end 

[mikeliuk]

Hi @jiffy176 ,

Many thanks for sharing your solution with the community.

My Netgear MR1100 has an internal database which added the APN "everywhere" (all lowercase) which has been functioning well with VPN for 7 months so it may be that we've found it's case insensitive.

Most likely it was the reconnection which fixed and perhaps a misconfiguration was noticed on the service provider side and fixed.