Linking 2 Linksys VPN Routers

[pronet74]

I am in Central PA and we are expanding to North Carolina. We are a distrubution company which uses wireless scanners to ship & receive. The company does not want to spend alot on connectivity and thus wanted to use our existing internet connect (cable 1mb/512k) and an internet connect down in NC (the same speed) and to create a VPN.

We have a couple Linksys BEFSX41 Cable/VPN Routers that I was going to use. I saw Linksys's page about how to connect them two to create a VPN. Which is here:

http://www.linksys.com/support/top1... a VPN tunnel between two BEFSX41 routers.asp

I have a couple of questions:

1) In that link they talk about having each router on two different subnets. Our wireless scanners grab an IP address from the DHCP server. I want it to grab an IP from the DHCP Server here in PA. I'm not planning on putting a server in NC yet. Can this be done since they will be on two different subnets?

2) Do I need a DHCP Server in NC?

3) Will both locations still be able to reach the internet?

4) As they add people in the next year or so we will go with a higher bandwidth. The President of the corp. mentioned to me he read where some store outlets are using satelitte at high speeds to connect many of their offices together. I don't know what companies offer this and what the costs are. Right now they don't want to spend the money for T-1s for a point to point.

 

[ROUTERKID1]

The Linksys VPN routers BEFVP41 and BEFSX41 are great devices for setting up LAN to LAN VPNs quickly and easily. The VP41 allows up to 70 VPN links, the SX41, 2

In a static IP environment setting up the VPN links is straightforward. Go to the VPN tab on the router setup and follow the Linksys instructions on creating the VPN

For sites with one or both (or multiple) dynamic IP addresses, it is only slightly more complex.

Firstly go to

http://www.dyndns.org,

register there(FREE) and (preferably from the site that has a dynamic IP address) create an account name for your dynamic IP address location for example: companyname.dyndns.org. If you have multiple dynamic IP sites, register one for each of them.

At the Linksys VPN router at the dynamic IP site click on the Advanced tab and select the DDNS tab. Enter the details of your Dyndns account, click Apply and you are set to go. This gives you a Fully Qualified Domain Name which you can use for your VPN. When the IP address of the dynamic location changes, it updates dyndns and there is no (minimal?) interruption in your VPN link.

This is also useful for anything else, for example if you want to run remote desktop or terminal services or a web server.

Thereafter it is a case of creating the VPN tunnels on both routers (REMEMBER to click Apply when you have entered all the details BEFORE you click on Connect!) - at the dynamic IP site router, connect to the static IP address of the other router, at the static address site, use the Dyndns FQDN to resolve the address of the dynamic site.

A very useful tip - make sure you have strong passwords on both routers and then enable remote management. In this way you then have access to the routers from anywhere and you can work on setting up the tunnel on both routers simultaneously. While you are setting it up, you might have to get someone at the dynamic IP site to look at the router's status page to tell you what the then current IP address is, so you can get in there and set up the DDNS

NOTE: to access the router, use http:\\IP address OR FQDN:8080 this will give you your remote router's logon (Only if remote management is turned on)

 

[french44]

RouterKid, is best to have one BEFVP41 router at each location and set it up router-to-router, or can you set it up with only one? I have a BEFSR41 router at each location now, but I'm thinking I need more than one connection at a time. Or do you know of a way to setup the routers I have now. Thanks.

 

[ROUTERKID1]

The routers you have now should be fine if you only need 2 connections.