Using a VPN while in China. PPTP server on Tomato?

[jkroeder]

I have an Asus RT-N66U router with Shibbys Tomato firmware.

I am traveling to China in a few days and was wondering if using the PPTP server on my router and home connection would work to bypass any blocks there may be in place in hotels, 3G connections, "great firewall of china" etc.

I already have a subscription to one of the online VPN services but I wouldn't mind using my own connection if it works just as well (taking into account upload speed on my home connection, of course). Especially since I'm reading that many of these services are blocked in China.

Any experiences with this?

TIA

 

[John Connor]

Unless they block PPTP I don't see an issue.

 

[jkroeder]

What about all the security issues everyone always refers to with PPTP? Seems like from what I've read, as long as my passphrase is long enough, this short term basic use, PPTP should be fine.

Or should I just go with a SSH tunnel via the router instead?

 

[drebo]

PPTP is the least reliable VPN technology. It almost never works in hotels, and it's unlikely to work at all in China.

 

[paperwastage]

it depends on your server's connection speed and latency

I tried to connect to my UK VPS from Hong Kong... too slow to do anything

 

[jkroeder]

Hmm. Well, hopefully I'll have a decent 3G connection as an alternative.

It's too bad router firmware like Tomato doesn't support L2TP.

 

[John Connor]

I have DD-WRT installed and use the SSH server in a pinch. It suitable. Speed is slow though so don't expect to watch YouTube videos with it.

 

[jkroeder]

Figured I'd post an update just in case anyone happens to be in a similar situation and runs into this thread.

I've stayed in around eight different hotels by now. Verdict? Much like you guys have said, it's been hit or miss.

While I can't pinpoint the exact reasons why it sometimes didn't work, I couldn't even connect to the PPTP server at many hotels. Connecting to a L2TP server via a VPN provider would, at times, work when the PPTP didn't. Sometimes that didn't work either. There were other times where the VPN would randomly just disconnect or I wouldn't be able to resolve domain names at all.

What did work most of the time was SSH tunnelling, like John Connor mentions.

I'm able to secure my traffic and access Youtube/Google, etc most reliably via SSH while in China.



Oh and I suppose I'd like to mention for anyone planning to visit China that mobile data here just isn't very good in my experience. The most common provider you'll see with store fronts is China Mobile and they run on EDGE.