FAQ: How do I make my VPN or other software compatible with Portmaster?

[dhaavi]

Portmaster deeply integrations into the network stack of your operating system in order to protect your privacy. Sometimes this can lead to problems with other software, especially VPNs.

In addition to this guide, we also maintain a list of compatible VPNs and other software that you can check. Some also have dedicated instructions to get them to work.

Not every VPN or software will be able to work with Portmaster. See the Limits section below for details on this.

Allow Connections

First, find the VPN software in the Network Monitor in the Portmaster App and make sure all connections it makes are allowed. If you get it working, you can still block connections again to see if it can work without them.

If you don't know how to allow blocked connections, please follow this guide: #706

Before you continue, please check if your VPN or software works now. Only continue, if it does not.

Disable Seamless DNS Integration

Portmaster takes great care not to break your system and as such does not make permanent changes to the network stack of your system: #702

Rather, in order to still seamlessly integrate, Portmaster redirects connections - mostly DNS queries - where they need to go. This can interfere with VPNs or other software that tries to do the same.

If you can disable your VPN's behavior of this, then this is recommended. If that is not possible, you can disable Seamless DNS Integration in Portmaster. To do this, you have to:

• enter the Development Interface through the UI Mode in the settings
• set your Feature Stability to "Experimental"

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⚠️ If you disable Seamless DNS Integration in Portmaster, you will need to take care of the system integration yourself!

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This means that you will need to configure the DNS server in your operating system AND the VPN to point to the Portmaster:

• Windows: 127.0.0.1
• Linux: 127.0.0.17

Portmaster does periodic self-checks and will warn you when the integration is broken. Checks are not done so often, so they take a while to appear and to disappear.

If you want faster results for the self-check and you're experienced with computers, you can:

• enter the Development Interface through the UI Mode in the settings
• enable the Development Mode
• open this page in your browser: http://127.0.0.1:817/api/v1/compat/self-check

Workaround

If the previous steps have not worked - or you were not confident enough to attempt them - you can try to use a generic VPN client instead of the custom application by the VPN provider.

We suggest you check if you can download an OpenVPN client configuration or connection profile from your VPN. Then, install OpenVPN and load the supplied profile.

Report Findings

If you followed this guide and either succeeded or failed in making your VPN or software compatible, it would be great if you could report this using this GitHub Issue template!

Limits

Windows

Portmaster on Windows uses a kernel driver / extension in order to integrate into the network stack. Depending on how other software integrates into the network stack, there might be an unavoidable collision. Please open an issue.

Linux

Portmaster on Linux uses packet and connection marks to save decisions to the network state. Other software using the same will interfere and it and Portmaster will break each other. This can only be fixed if the other software can be made to not use packet and connection marks.

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Keywords: VPN, Anti-Virus, protection, kernel, extension, no internet, broken, OpenVPN, profile, configuration

Categories: Compatibility

[dhaavi]

Reserved.