Padavan setup with NordVPN

This tutorial explains how to connect your Padavan firmware router to NordVPN using the OpenVPN protocol.

First things first, these changes are made in the web configuration panel of your router. You can access it by visiting the local IP of your router from your web browser. The two most common, default local IPs that most routers have are 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 - you can access these by opening http://192.168.1.1 or http://192.168.0.1 in your browser. The default IP, username and password are listed in your router’s User Manual.

1. Please access your router and navigate to VPN Client -> Settings tab.

2. Select Enable VPN Client and fill in the fields as follows:

Remote VPN Server (IP or DNS host): for the sake of the tutorial, we have used se22.nordvpn.com, but personally, you should connect automatically to the suggested server.

Follow the steps below to find the best server for your connection:

1. Log into your Nord Account, and click NordVPN.
   
   
    
2. Scroll down to Advanced Settings and click Set up NordVPN manually.
   
   
    
3. Select the Server recommendation tab. According to your location, the best server will be recommended.
   
   
    
4. By pressing Advanced filters you can further customize the recommended servers by selecting the Server type and the Security protocol.
   
   
   
   
    

Login: Your NordVPN service username
Password: Your NordVPN service password
Authentication Algorithm: SHA-512
Encryption Cipher Algorithm: AES-256-CBC
Enable LZO for Data Compression: Disable

You can find your NordVPN service credentials (service username and service password) in the Nord Account dashboard.

Follow the steps below to find the service credentials for manual connection setup:

1. Log into your Nord Account, and click NordVPN.
   
   
    
2. Scroll down to Advanced Settings and click Set up NordVPN manually.
   
   
    
3. Select the Service credentials tab, where you'll find the Username and Password needed to connect manually.
   

Open the OpenVPN Extended Configuration menu and paste the following code block:

If you wish to use TCP protocol instead, change the Transport option to TCP, and Port to 443.

3. Press Apply and then select OpenVPN Certificates & Keys

Copy our servers CA certificate into ca.crt field and Static Key into ta.key field. You can download these certificates and keys using this link: https://downloads.nordcdn.com/configs/archives/certificates/servers.zip

4. After connecting to our service you should make your changes permanent. You can do it in three ways:

• Run in console command "mtd_storage.sh save";
• On the page Advanced Settings -> Administration -> Settings press button "Commit" to the right of the item "Commit Internal Storage to Flash Memory Now";
• Reboot router by pressing the Reboot button to the right of "Logout" button.

5. You should also use NordVPN DNS servers to protect against DNS leaks. You can see the setting in the image below: