simultaneous VPN client and server in zeroshell?

[merk]

I am considering setting up a zeroshell box as a home network internet gateway and fileserver.

I live in a country with heavy internet filtering, so I want to run via VPN thru my local ISP to a commercial VPN server in another country, and from there to wherever. Clearly, zeroshell could easily be setup to act as a single VPN client for my entire home LAN, like this:

devices on home LAN –>VPN client on zeroshell –>internet –> foreign commercial VPN server –> internet unfiltered

However, sometimes when traveling locally I would like to have laptop or iphone access foreign internet thru this same commercial VPN. Of course the simplest way would be run a VPN client in the laptop or iphone directly to the foreign commercial VPN server. However, my home server will be always-on (for VOIP and other services), and I am not eager to pay for a second commercial VPN client acct.

In theory, it seems, I ought to be able to do this:

VPN client on laptop or iphone –>hotspot/internet–>VPN server on zeroshell –>VPN client on zeroshell –>ISP/internet –> foreign VPN server –> internet unfiltered

but I worry that having my zeroshell box in the middle acting as both VPN client and server may be problematic. For instance, I have read that one machine cannot run two instances of OpenVPN at the same time (tho I haven’t yet done any experimentation).

Of course, I can choose a foreign client which uses either one of openVPN or IPSec, and use the other protocol for my local tunnel, so at least the zeroshell client and server functions would be implemented via two distinct and disimilar processes, and set them up to use different ports. Still, I anticipate problems.

I am not really much of a network person but am never afraid to jump into the deep water and give things a try. Grateful if someone more knowledgeable than I could tell me whether this is doable.

TIA

[ppalias]

Regarding the double openvpn instance, this is something I have already tried and works without a problem (on windows xp, but this shouldn’t be a problem on linux).

[merk]

@ppalias wrote:

Regarding the double openvpn instance, this is something I have already tried and works without a problem (on windows xp, but this shouldn’t be a problem on linux).

thnx. I had read otherwise somewhere.

When you tried this were the two instances one client and one server?

[ppalias]

Both were p2p connections. But if there is no port conflict it should work regardless the mode.

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