Penguin69 had an older thread, thread54-1626333, and I am having the exact same problem. I love the idea that you have in the old thread however, I am not able to make it work properly. I am a Linux rookie and like you, I desperately need a solution. I am using Ubuntu 12.04 and the latest version of Openswan. My vpn tunnel establishes properly, but I cannot send pings out from my side over the tunnel. Pings from the remote side work fine. Were there any other routes that you needed to add or any other iptables rules that you had to add or remove or manipulate? I have been struggling with this for a few days now and seem to just be spinning my wheels. Any help from anyone is much appreciated. Thanks!