Install OpenVPN on fireTV (no root required) for NORD (MAC, Windows, Linux)

Posted on by Malinda RathnayakeLeave a Comment on Install OpenVPN on fireTV (no root required) for NORD (MAC, Windows, Linux)


DISCLAIMER: No copyright infringement intended. This article is for entertainment and educational purposes only,
Alright!! now that’s out of the way I’m going to keep this short and simple 
Scope : – 

 Install OpenVPN client
import profile with username and password
connect to your preferred VPN server
Use case : – 

  • Secure your fireTV traffic using any OpenVPN supported VPN services=
  • Connect to your home file server/NAS and stream files when traveling via your FireTV or Firestick using your own VPN server (not covered in this article)
  • Watch Streaming services when traveling using your own VPN server (not covered in this article)
 
 
 
Guide :- 


 Project Summary 

 Hardware – FireTV 4K Latest firmware 

 Platform – Windows 10 Enterprise

 in this guide im using ADB to install OpenVPN client on my fireTV and use that to connect to the NORDVPN service

 All Project files are located on C:NoRDVPN


 Files Needed (Please download these files to your workstation before proceeding)

 OpenVPN client APK – http://plai.de/android/

 NORDVPN OpenVPN configuration files – https://nordvpn.com/ovpn/

 ADBLink – http://jocala.com

01. Enable Developer mode on Fire tv 

 http://www.aftvnews.com/how-to-enable-adb-debugging-on-an-amazon-fire-tv-or-fire-tv-stick/

  1. From the Fire TV or Fire TV Stick’s home screen, scroll to “Settings”.
  2. Next, scroll to the right and select “Device”.
  3. Next, scroll down and select “Developer options”.
  4. Then select “ADB debugging” to turn the option to “ON”.
 
02. Install OpenVPN client via the network using ADBLInk
 
Install the ADBlink program
 
Download URL – http://jocala.com
 
Create Device profile and connect 
 
Launch ADBLink and click on “New”
 
 
Fill out the information 
 
Notes – 
 
Address  – this is the IP assigned to your FireTV you can get this from the fireTV Network status page under 
 
“Settings”.> “System”.> “About” > “Network”
 
 
You can also get this information from your ARP table, DHCP leases on your DHCP server, etc 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Leave everything else with default values and save the profile
 
Install APK using ADBLINK
 
 
Browse to the location you download all files to and select the OpenVPN APk file 
 
In this guide the location is “C:NoRDVPN”
After a successful install, you will be greeted with the following dialog box 
02. Configure and copy(ADB Push) OVPN configuration files
 
this step is very important
 
02-01 Create Login configuration files
 
Under the same folder where you downloaded files Example – C:NoRDVPN
 
create a text file with the following name – login.conf
 
Edit the file with your favorite text editor 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Enter your NORDVPN credentials in two separate lines (Email address and password)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Save Changes
 
 
02-02 Edit the VPN configuration file
Open the VPN configuration files in my case, I picked a US server so my filename is 
 
us226.nordvpn.com.udp1194.ovpn
File the line that reads “auth-user-pass” and replace it with “auth-user-pass login.conf“
Save Changes
 
02. Push configuration files to the FireTV
 
 
  • Click on “File Manager” on adbLink
               Notes – By Default, it will connect to the root of the SDcard on your FireTV 
  • Create a folder (I’m going to call it NORD_VPN)
 
Find the created “NORD_VPN” folder and double click on it via the left window pane 
Click on “Push”
 
 
Browse to the folder (C:/NoRDVPN) and select the two configuration files 
 
Note – 
 
Use Shift to select multiple files
 
Files will be pushed out to the FireTV as soon as you select Choose
 
 
 
Now we are done with the work from your workstation
 
By the time you reach this step you will have completed the following 
 
  • Installed OpenVPN on the FireTV system
  • Customized the VPN configuration files
  • Copied the VPN configuration files to the Root of the SDcard on the FireTV system
Note – Next steps are really simple and you only need the fireTV remote to complete these
 
03. Import VPN profile on FireTV and connect
 
 
Browse to your Apps and Games > See All 
 

Select and launch OpenVPN Client

Use the + sign to add a profile 

Click Import

Browse and Select the ovpn configuration file using the browser 

 
 
Click on the imported VPN profile to initiate the connection 
Under the “Settings” Tab make sure “use System proxy” is enabled
Now your fireTV is routing traffic via the VPN 
 
This is the only outbound connection from the FireTV connecting to the NORDVPN server IP via openVPN port UDP 1194
 
You can find this IP in the configuration file or by going to the OpenVPN logs Tab
 
Until next time….Stay Awesome Internetz : ) 

Hacking WatchGuard Firebox to Run pfsense- nanoBSD

Posted on by Malinda RathnayakeLeave a Comment on Hacking WatchGuard Firebox to Run pfsense- nanoBSD


Hi Internetz, its been a while…

So we had an old Firebox X700 laying around in office gathering dust. I saw this forum post about running m0nowall on this device. since pfsense is based on m0nowall, I googled around to find a way to install pfsense on the device and found several threads on pfsense forums. 
It took me a little while to comb through thousands of posts to find a proper way to go about this. And some more time was spent on troubleshooting the issues I faced during the installation and configuration. So I’m putting everything I found on this post, to save you the time spent googling around. This should work for all the other firebox models as well.

What you need :

Hardware

  • Firebox 
  • Female to Female Serial Cable – link
  • 4GB CF Card (We can use 1Gb, 2Gb but personally I would recommend at-least 4GB)
  • CF Card Reader

Software

  • pfsense NanoBSD
  • physdiskwrite –  Download
  • TeraTerm Pro Web – Enhanced Telnet/SSH2 Client – Download

The firebox X700

This is basically a small X86 PC. we have a Intel Celeron CPU running at @1.2Ghz with 512MB Ram. The system boots using a CF card with watchguard firmware
The custom Intel motherboard used in the device does not include a VGA or a DVI port. we have to use the serial port for all the communications with the device

There are several methods to run pfsense on this device.

HDD

Install PF sense on a PC and Plug the HDD to the firebox.

This requires a bit more of a effort cause we need to change the boot order on bios. and its kinda hard to find IDE laptop HDD’s these days

CF card

This is very straight forward Method. We are basically swapping out the CF card already installed on the device and booting pfsense from it. 


In this tutorial we are using the CF card method

Installing PFsense

  • Download the relevant pfsense image


Since we are using a CF card we need to use the PFsense version built to work on embedded devices.

NanoBSD version is built specially to be used with CFcards or any other storage media’s that have limited read write life cycle

Since we are using a 4GB CF card, we are going to use the 4G image

  • Flashing the nanoBSD image to the CF card


Extract the physdiskwrite program and run the PhysGUI.exe
This software is written in German i think but operating it is not that hard

Select the CF card from the list.

Note : if you are not sure about the disk device ID. use diskpart and determine the disk ID

Load the ISO file
Right click on the Disk “Image laden > offnen”

select the ISO file from the “open file” window
program will prompt you with the following dialog box

 


Select the remove 2GB restriction and click “OK”
It will warn you about the disk being formatted (I think), click yes to start the disk flashing process. a CMD window will open and show you the progress

  • Installing the CF card on the Firebox

Once the flashing process is completed, open up the Firebox and Remove the drive cage to gain access to the installed CF Card

Remove the protective glue and replace the card with the new CF card flashed with pfsense image.

  • Booting up and configuring PFsense

since Firebox does not have any way to connect to a display or any peripheral ports. We need to use a serial connection for communicating with the device

Install “teraTerm pro web” program we downloaded earlier.

I tried using putty and many other telnet clients didn’t work properly

Open up the terminal window

Connect the firebox to the PC using the serial cable, and power it up

Select “Serial” and select the com port the device is connected to and click OK(You can check this in device manager)

  
Many other tutorials says to change the baud rates. but defaults worked just fine for me
Since we already flashed the PFsense image to the CF card we do not need to install the OS

By now on the terminal window you should be having the PF sense configuration details. just as with a normal fresh install.

It will ask you to setup VLan

Assign the WAN, LAN, OPT1 interfaces.

ON X700 interface names are as follows 

Please refer to pfsense Docs for more info on setting up 


http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Tutorials#Advanced_Tutorials


After the initial config is completed. you do not need the console cable and Tera Term
you will be able to access the PFsense via the web-interface and good ol SSH via the LAN IP



Addtional configuration

  • Enabling the LCD panel

All firebox units have a LCD panel in front
We can use the pfsense LCDproc-dev package to enable and display various information

Install the LCDproc-dev Package via the package Manager

Go to Services > LCDProc

Set the settings as follows


Hope this article helped you guys.Dont forget to leave a comment with your thoughts 

Sources –

http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?board=5.0