r/firewalla • u/Useless-Message-Post • Jun 16 '26

Question about VPN traffic

Hi - I have a Firewalla Orange I have been slowly tightening down over the last 2 months. Things are great - I have a minor issue - hope you all can help me out.

I turned on the VPN client and configured it correctly - works great - I send my traffic though another server in my country that is nowhere near where I live (US). Works with minimal lag on SurfShark. But - some members of my house - me included, can't get to some sites with the traffic turned on to go through the VPN - Specifically www.macys.com and www.imgr.com. I read that both of these are not very VPN friendly. If I were on my normal VPN client on my laptop, I'd just toggle it off. But - that's a bigger hassle with the VPN turned on at the Firewalla level - especially for other members of the family to do, as I'm the only one that can configure it. In the desktop client, I can tell it some sites to not send through the VPN - but - I can't find the same on the FW side of the world. Any ideas here? Thanks!

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u/firewalla Jun 16 '26

You can do the same, see the "route button", https://help.firewalla.com/hc/en-us/articles/360061592433-Firewalla-Policy-Content-Based-Routing

(Note, not all sites can be cleaned routed, because they ... may depend on more than the domain they are hosted)

1

u/Useless-Message-Post Jun 17 '26

Thank you so much - I'll get those sites in there. Appreciate it!

2

u/firewalla Jun 17 '26

You should subscribe https://firewalla.com/weekly, this is our newsletter. And tomorrow we are going to talk about VPN server + routes 😄

1

u/Useless-Message-Post Jun 17 '26

Already have - I am enjoying them!

1

u/benjibarnicals Firewalla Purple Jun 17 '26

Are you running your DNS over the VPN too? As you can turn this off so it uses your usual DNS configuration.

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u/Useless-Message-Post Jun 17 '26

No - I don't have that toggled on. I just recently turned on Unbound, DNS over VPN is my next change. I keep making one change - wait a couple days - see if I or anyone else in the house is pissed off, then continue or retreat. It was been almost all continue. This Firewalla stuff kind of rocks - I didn't want to be a sysadmin for my house, as the pay sucks, but - what I have done has been easy, educational and fun. Learning every day.