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Unleash policy-based routing on Asus hardware to select which devices bypass the tunnel.
Asuswrt-Merlin builds on Asus routers legendary performance to deliver VPN Director, the gold standard of policy-based router routing. Why sacrifice gaming speeds on your desktop to encrypt your personal laptop? With VPN Director, you establish strict rules that route your Smart TV or torrent client through the VPN tunnel, while leaving lag-sensitive gaming consoles completely on the high-speed local WAN route.
Open the Merlin Control board at http://192.168.50.1, find the advanced left navigation rail and click VPN. Under the OpenVPN Clients tab, scroll down to the bottom file-link form, click Browse and choose your provider .ovpn configuration file. Click Upload.
Merlin handles connections transparently. To prevent routing the entire household, locate the Redirect Internet Traffic switch. Select Policy Rules (VPN Director) instead of "Yes (All)". This unlocks the granular device routing board below.
Specify which home devices are secured or ignored. Under the VPN Director Rule List, add rule records. For instance, you can secure your entire NAS subnet while keeping your primary workstation of a clean WAN bypass protocol.
# Rule Example Layout inside VPN Director Rules:
# Destination Local Client | Remote Target Network | VPN Interface State
192.168.50.15 (NAS IP) | 0.0.0.0/0 (All WAN) | VPN Client 1 (Active)
192.168.50.101 (Work PC) | 0.0.0.0/0 (All WAN) | WAN (Bypass-Direct)Crucially, set Accept DNS Configuration to the Exclusive parameter. Doing so forces your browser configurations to only query private DNS addresses residing inside the virtual private network tunnel, bypassing local network tracking servers entirely.
Accept DNS Configuration: Exclusive
Kill Switch (Block routing on VPN drop): YesAssign fixed network IPs (Statice DHCP Reservations) under your LAN settings for any device you write rules for. If the local IP of your TV changes after a power cycle, your routing policy rule will miss the device!
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