Now, if you’re using an OpenVPN selective routing tunnel like I’ve been discussing to push specific subnets through a tunnel, then you probably also have good reason to want to force specific DNS domains to resolve through a DNS server that is also on the the other end of that tunnel (eg, an internal network).

There’s a lot of guides about how to use OpenVPN to push arbitrary routes (usually to defeat geolocking) from an OpenVPN client to a server.  However, my requirements are actually backwards.  I need to be able to push routes from my server to a client (since the ‘server’ is my home router).  This requires a different rule set from normal.

Discovered a little wrinkle in Windows 7’s Network Identification feature.  If you’re pushing an OpenVPN tunnel to a machine and not substituting the default gateway (because, for example, you want a split tunnel) with the VPN’s gateway, then Windows just consistently won’t identify the network, which means you’re stuck with the “Public” firewall profile.

I wound out replacing my existing router (which had a buggy NAT issue) with a TP-Link TL-WR1043ND running OpenWRT.  It was pretty damned easy to get it all running and set it up as an in-place upgrade.  However, I wanted more out of it.

Well, my VOIP ATA has been working just fine for the past few weeks.  Except for yesterday.  My ADSL modem lost sync and therefore gained a new external IP address, and there the problems started.  From that point on, my ATA could not register with my SIP provider.  I even rebooted the ATA, and it made no difference.

With the release of OpenELEC 4.0, XBMC 13 (Gotham) is now available!  For those of us driving a media center with a Raspberry Pi, this is great news (there’s significant performance improvements on the RPI).