Auto-switching servers by selecting country or continent in config generator?

[Anon23978 0]

Hello,

From the config generator help section, the following line indicates that the intermediate country or continent server will auto-switch endpoints should the current / active endpoint go down or have problems:
 

Quote

Selecting servers by country or contintents will allow your VPN client to switch automatically between servers. This gives you the significant comfort that in case of an AirVPN server unavailability, a working one will be picked for connection: no need for your intervention.

I run the native Wireguard implementation on Linux, so I simply use the configs as they are provided. For example, the generated "United States" config points to us3.vpn.airdns.org as its endpoint, which then routes the connection to an actual endpoint?
However, when the actual endpoint server encounters packet loss, us3.vpn.airdns.org has not automatically changed endpoints -- isn't it supposed to?
If so, what are the trigger conditions for it to make a change, and how long does it usually take to change to another endpoint server?

Thank you.

[OpenSourcerer 1450]

13 hours ago, Anon23978 said:

For example, the generated "United States" config points to us3.vpn.airdns.org as its endpoint, which then routes the connection to an actual endpoint?

ccX.vpn.airdns.org always points to the "best" server in the cc region. It's a DNS record updated every five minutes, so there is no routing done anywhere.
 

13 hours ago, Anon23978 said:

However, when the actual endpoint server encounters packet loss, us3.vpn.airdns.org has not automatically changed endpoints -- isn't it supposed to?

It's not instantaneous and depends on the AirVPN/AirDNS infrastructure (for updating this record), caches on your computer or network and how the caches/DNS servers are configured. In the case of OpenVPN the previously used remote address is even preserved between connection attempts to reduce DNS lookups, so the only way to force it to look up the name again is to terminate and relaunch OpenVPN completely. A similar thing may be happening with Wireguard.

[Anon23978 0]

49 minutes ago, OpenSourcerer said:

ccX.vpn.airdns.org always points to the "best" server in the cc region. It's a DNS record updated every five minutes, so there is no routing done anywhere.
 
It's not instantaneous and depends on the AirVPN/AirDNS infrastructure (for updating this record), caches on your computer or network and how the caches/DNS servers are configured. In the case of OpenVPN the previously used remote address is even preserved between connection attempts to reduce DNS lookups, so the only way to force it to look up the name again is to terminate and relaunch OpenVPN completely. A similar thing may be happening with Wireguard.

I see. Thank you for the explanation. I just wanted to make sure there was nothing (else) on my end that I needed to do in order to facilitate the auto-switching. It sounds like leaving the already established Wireguard connection alone should Just Workᵀᴹ.

[OpenSourcerer 1450]

2 hours ago, Anon23978 said:

It sounds like leaving the already established Wireguard connection alone should Just Workᵀᴹ. 

Most probably.

[Air4141841 30]

I posted previously in using my opnsense router. and a country as posted above: us3.vpn.airdns.org

 I checked my team viewer account and my devices on the airvpn tunnel were offline.  
I came home and checked the airvpn server stats and the server I was connected to previously for a few weeks was down.   and it did not "seemlessly". reconnect as wireguard is suppose too.

I moved back to openvpn briefly then switched back to wireguard again.    to my knowledge and monitoring of my devices it hasn't gone back offline again.    but at that time it did not reconnect like it was suppose to, rather frustrating 

[Anon23978 0]

I have been connected to the Los Angeles Sarin sever for 2+ weeks and it is now (as I type this) suffering from high (96%) packet loss for more than 15 minutes.

It has been struggling with lower packet loss for the past day or so as well, yet us3.vpn.airdns.org has not updated/switched to a better server.

https://airvpn.org/servers/Sarin/

[Staff 10082]

1 hour ago, Anon23978 said:

I have been connected to the Los Angeles Sarin sever for 2+ weeks and it is now (as I type this) suffering from high (96%) packet loss for more than 15 minutes.

It has been struggling with lower packet loss for the past day or so as well, yet us3.vpn.airdns.org has not updated/switched to a better server.

Hello!

Area domain names records are updated every 2-5 minutes but remember that TTL is 1 hour, so you can expect that a TTL respectful DNS updates cached records on average after 30 minutes. On our authoritative servers, us3.vpn.airdns.org did not resolve to Sarin entry-IP address 3 immediately after the packet loss was detected by the monitoring system. We're investigating the problem on Sarin.

Kind regards
 

[Air4141841 30]

2 hours ago, Anon23978 said:

I have been connected to the Los Angeles Sarin sever for 2+ weeks and it is now (as I type this) suffering from high (96%) packet loss for more than 15 minutes.

It has been struggling with lower packet loss for the past day or so as well, yet us3.vpn.airdns.org has not updated/switched to a better server.

https://airvpn.org/servers/Sarin/

it’s weird that I posted this earlier today.

and experienced the same exact issue, on that same server…  Wire guard did not reconnect to a new server, I had to restart the service for airvpn service to work 

I am hoping staff finds the issue or I’ll go back to several individual peers that should round robin instead 

[psykiller 0]

Hi,

In case i'm using conf generated and there is already specific city/server:
Endpoint = se3.vpn.airdns.org:51820

1. But I would like to switch to "cc region" style, do i need to generate new conf with keys?
Or is enough to change the Endpoint URL in the conf?

2. Doing so ...what would be the effect on P2P networks usage? as it probably change the city (location) within country, then also IP, so trackers might see it as new login from different location and it might leads to "re-login" on page?

thx

[SurprisedItWorks 51]

Running the native WireGuard implementation on linux (or the official WireGuard app in an iPhone), there will be no automatic switching if the server goes down, because that implementation only resolves the domain name into an IP address when you start up WireGuard or enable that particular tunnel.  In iOS you can just turn the switch in the app for that tunnel to off and back on, and it will re-resolve.  In linux I'm guessing you have to take the tunnel down and back up.

Somewhere above I thought I saw a question re changing just the endpoint in a wireguard config.  Yes, you can do that with Air servers.  They all respond to the same keys.  (Some VPN providers are different, so if you also have a backup VPN firm, do your homework.)

[AG999 11]

4 hours ago, psykiller said:

Endpoint = se3.vpn.airdns.org:51820

1. But I would like to switch to "cc region" style, do i need to generate new conf with keys?
Or is enough to change the Endpoint URL in the conf?
 

In my experience, changing region in endpoint was enough.

For example: se3.vpn.airdns.org:51820 -> no3.vpn.airdns.org:51820

[psykiller 0]

On 1/17/2025 at 8:50 PM, SurprisedItWorks said:

Running the native WireGuard implementation on linux (or the official WireGuard app in an iPhone), there will be no automatic switching if the server goes down, because that implementation only resolves the domain name into an IP address when you start up WireGuard or enable that particular tunnel.  In iOS you can just turn the switch in the app for that tunnel to off and back on, and it will re-resolve.  In linux I'm guessing you have to take the tunnel down and back up.

Somewhere above I thought I saw a question re changing just the endpoint in a wireguard config.  Yes, you can do that with Air servers.  They all respond to the same keys.  (Some VPN providers are different, so if you also have a backup VPN firm, do your homework.)

Forgot to mention - i'm using VPN on Mikrotik / Router level , so no VPN app is involved

[SurprisedItWorks 51]

"no VPN app is involved"

I also run wireguard on routers, in my case in dd-wrt, and just as with the app, there is no automatic switching when wireguard goes down or the server becomes loaded.  I have to restart the wireguard system.  The good news is that this is very rare.  I find wireguard can handle a heavily loaded server and just keep on going.

[Air4141841 30]

14 hours ago, SurprisedItWorks said:

"no VPN app is involved"

I also run wireguard on routers, in my case in dd-wrt, and just as with the app, there is no automatic switching when wireguard goes down or the server becomes loaded.  I have to restart the wireguard system.  The good news is that this is very rare.  I find wireguard can handle a heavily loaded server and just keep on going.

see my post and Staffs response 2 below: something has clearly changed.   as 1.  I am not changing servers "seamlessly" as wireguard advertises. 2.   its not reconnecting to another server when it goes down.   I have other peers setup and ready to go.   but the connection doesn't happen.. 

I am using hardware and the wireguard bundled with the latest version of opnsense.    not Eddie 
3.  when I connect 99% of the time I am being connected across the other side of the country where I am located.   
Staff said they were looking into the issue reported. I am hoping its resolved 

[Air4141841 30]

Happened again today 

anyone else seeing this? 

[psykiller 0]

for me it happended that im on ch3.vpn.airdns.org and when i tested speed / IP it shown the IP is in Pakistan :D

[SurprisedItWorks 51]

Just for the record, wireguard does not advertise seamless server switching.  It advertises seamless client roaming.  It's a very different thing.  FWIW.