Hi all, I need some help with a VPN. So far I have managed to setup the VPN server on the router at work using the DD-wrt VPN firmware on a linksys WRT54GL. I have setup a VPN connection on my laptop at home which goes through the verifying username/password thing and registering computer on network. All good so far. I can even start/run/cmd prompt and ping the various local IP's on the remote network. So in short, I KNOW I am connected. But I can't see anything except my home laptop and printer if I go into network and sharing. I need to be able to map a drive to one of the shared folders on one of the PC's at the office. Any ideas or links to a REAL dummies guide that I can follow? Btw I can and have used remote desktop from home before but in this particular instance it's not what I need.
you wont see any machines while browsing the network because the netbios protocol probably isn't being passed across the VPN. if you know the machine IP address on the remote network that has shared folders you can simple type in that IP in the start -> run box to access it. see the example below: My laptop (192.168.100.101) ----->> VPN -------->> remote File share (192.168.100.105) on laptop: Start -> Run: \\192.168.100.105 the \\ tells windows to try and connect to the file share on the machine at the given address. no need to actually browse the network looking for the machine.
Thanks for the reply ereetos, unfortunately it did find anything on any of the remote IP's. Anything else I can try?
maybe a silly question, but did you run the network setup wizard in windows? sometimes you have to run that or manually enable file sharing on the system. just ensure you have file sharing enabled by doing start -> run: \\127.0.0.1 on each machine that has files to share. if it comes up with the shared folders then file sharing is enabled. i'm guessing the VPN software on the router isn't passing the file sharing traffic properly, the firewall rules are blocking it, or you have conflicting subnet information between your networks. what network blocks are you using on the machines for the VPN and private local area network?
Thanks again for trying to help ereetos. All the PC's have file sharing enabled and I have doubled checked with run: \\127.0.0.1 As far as the firewall on the router goes I have allowed ports 1723, 500 & 47 to be open. Perhaps I need to allow these ports on the remote PC's as well even though the VPN server software is on/in the router itself? "....conflicting subnet information between your networks. what network blocks are you using on the machines for the VPN and private local area network?" This is why I need a dummys guide as that was all greek to me lol I think I know where to find the subnet info but what should it be? Network blocks I haven't got a clue...
well for example. say your home network and router is using 192.168.100.x with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 this means any ip between 192.168.100.1 and 192.168.100.255 is on the same network. so if your remote work computer is also using a 192.168.100.x address, and you dial into a VPN using that same network block, your work computer will not know where to send the data. ( should i send it to my work network, or to the vpn network? I DONT KNOW OMG! ) but if your work machine is on a different network like 192.168.101.x, then when you connect to the vpn running at home, the home router will give your work machine a 192.168.100.x address for the VPN, and you will still have 192.168.101.x network on the same machine. then when you try to access a share using 192.168.100.5 (or whatever the ip is of the home network share), your work machine can clearly tell the difference between the two networks it is connected to. so on your work machine, and home machine, you would want to verify that they are not using the same private addressing blocks. or else it will not know where to send packets to when they are connected. make sense?
Makes perfect sense, thank you. Ok just checked and this is what I have... Work IP 192.168.1.x Subnet mask 255.255.255.0 Home IP 192.168.0.x Subnet mask 255.255.255.0 So should I change the subnet mask on the works router to 255.255.254.0 ? EDIT: I just checked the details of the VPN connection in network and sharing Does any of this help? Connection-specific DNS Suffix: Description: VPN Connection Physical Address: DHCP Enabled: No IPv4 IP Address: 192.168.0.5 IPv4 Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.255 IPv4 Default Gateway: IPv4 DNS Servers: 192.168.1.1, 192.168.1.1 IPv4 WINS Server: NetBIOS over Tcpip Enabled: Yes
Last night I did manage to find a networked printer, (connected directly to the works router) by using add printer and it's internal IP whilst connected via VPN. I printed a test page and a small notepad message and both were there waiting for me when I got to work this morning. Though I still can't see any of the works PC's or even the printer I connected to when I look in the networks window. This is what I really need so I can map a network drive to a shared folder on one of the PC's.
