VPN help

  • OK, I have a T95X Pro S905X dual booting. I can connect via wifi thorugh android to my VPN (PIA) in the US and get approx 60meg download. However, if I try to access the same thing through LE using Zomboid's VPN addon, I get around 8meg. I know this could be an addon problem but just wondering if anyone else has experienced any problems running a VPN through LE.

  • On my MiniMX III (s905), I got 4.2MB/s download (~33Mb/s) over a gigabit fiber and gigabit ethernet connection.
    ARM processor are not very good with encryption... and there is no hardware encryption supported with the kernel (cryptodev) like Intel can do.

    Code
    LibreELEC:~ # ./speedtest_vpn.sh
      % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                     Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
     77  476M   77  368M    0     0  3749k      0  0:02:10  0:01:40  0:00:30 4205k
  • Sorry, it's a TX5 Pro.

    Anyway, thanks for the reply. However, I get faster speeds using the same box when I use Android and slower when I use LE (same box). Any ideas on why this is? Surely the speeds should be the same whether I boot into LE or Android


  • On my MiniMX III (s905), I got 4.2MB/s download (~33Mb/s) over a gigabit fiber and gigabit ethernet connection.
    ARM processor are not very good with encryption... and there is no hardware encryption supported with the kernel (cryptodev) like Intel can do.

    Code
    LibreELEC:~ # ./speedtest_vpn.sh
      % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                     Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
     77  476M   77  368M    0     0  3749k      0  0:02:10  0:01:40  0:00:30 4205k

    According to this whitepaper, :

    • Crypto Engine – AES/AES-XTS block cipher with 128/192/256 bits keys, DES/TDES block cipher, Hardware crypto key-ladder operation and DVB-CSA for transport stream encryption, built-in hardware True Random Number Generator (TRNG), CRC and SHA-1/SHA-2/HMAC SHA engine


    I have to disagree that the processor can't handle properly encryption/decryption using its hardware but I would instead check that the VPN is actually using an AES based algorithm.
    I can't talk about what the kernel supports or less though.


  • On my MiniMX III (s905), I got 4.2MB/s download (~33Mb/s) over a gigabit fiber and gigabit ethernet connection.
    ARM processor are not very good with encryption... and there is no hardware encryption supported with the kernel (cryptodev) like Intel can do.

    Code
    LibreELEC:~ # ./speedtest_vpn.sh
      % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                     Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
     77  476M   77  368M    0     0  3749k      0  0:02:10  0:01:40  0:00:30 4205k

    Current version has no hw crypto support. Try this special version built with amlogic hw crypto support:
    LibreELEC-S905.arm-8.0-devel-7.95.beta6X-20170215151926.img.gz

    Edited once, last by afl1 (February 15, 2017 at 2:29 PM).

  • Is this an issue only on 8.0 builds? My VPN was working beautifully (40+MB) with 7.0.3.x but I took a huge hit moving to 8.0 (2-3MB.)


    Ask kszaq, I am building only 8.0. As I know crypto HW support was added only last year.

  • I agree the processor supports it ;)

    You need :
    - kernel with cryptodev module
    - openssl/libressl to use the crypto engine
    - openvpn configured to use crypto engine

    Nobody managed to get the full stack working on Odroid C2. If you manage to do it, it would be awesome.
    ODROID Forum • View topic - Checking that the HW Crypto engine is used on the C2

    Between S905 and S905X, I don't think you'll see the difference ;)

    Edited once, last by Koxx (February 15, 2017 at 5:56 PM).

  • If you are speaking about Android, do you mean that you use a dedicated Android apk from PIA, or do you achieve these high speeds on Android kodi with the vpn addon installed in kodi?

    Assuming you are using an app from PIA to establish your connection on Android, than this app could choose ipsec or pptp protocol, which is mostly faster (either because decryption is way faster, cause weaker, than openvpn, or because PIA has more bandwidth on ipsec and pptp than on their openvpn servers).

    But LibreELEC is limited to OpenVPN, which is more secure, but mostly slower, especially on ARM systems, compared to x86/x64. And some VPN providers may share less bandwidth for the OpenVPN protocol servers, as these need more processing power, hence more energy consumption, less efficient for them and less users care whether it is openvpn or pptp, so they may calculate with this less demand and focus on high bandwidth for the other protocols.

    It's just a guess, but this could be an explanation why your android and libreelec show so different speeds.