Share VPN connection to other network users

[Cudn]

Hi All.

I need some help, as this problem is really killing me for more than a month now.

I have two locations, location A and location B.

Location A has a PPTP VPN server, to which computers from location B can connect and read from folder (example) \\192.168.68.10\share

The problem is, that i do not want that every computer in location B needs to create a VPN connection. Is there any way, that one computer from location B connects to location A through VPN, and then "forwards" the shared folder \\192.168.68.10\share.

I do have a pc with windows server 2003 running at location B, if that could be in any help. However this pc isn't used for nat, dhcp or dns for now (willing to set it up if really needed).

Any help would be more that appreciated.

 

[John Lewis]

In order for this to work, your two locations will need to have unique network addresses. If location A is using 192.168.68, location B must use something different. If both network addresses are the same, routing will not be possible.

I would suggest that you use your Server 2003 at location B to connect to the VPN server and allow it to route for your location B network. You will need to configure RRAS on the B server and create an outbound VPN connection. You do not need NAT since you will be routing between private networks. No need for DHCP on this server, and you don't need DNS if using the IP address for the share is OK. See

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc787328(WS.10).aspx,

scroll down about half the page to "Deploying the Calling Router" for details.

Once you get the server configured, you will need to add a static route to your primary router to route traffic for the 192.168.68 network (location A) to your Server 2003. At location A, you will need to add a route to your primary router to route traffic for your location B network to the VPN server. If the VPN server is also your primary router at location A, this should take care of itself.

You don't really need the server to handle the routing at location B. Any Windows computer would do the job by enabling IPForwarding. The main difference is you would need a registry edit to enable a non-server version instead of using the setup wizard and you would have a bit less control over the process.

 

[Cudn]

Hi mhkwood.

Thank you for your reply. I already tried this, but no success. The local network at location B is 192.168.0, so this should be OK.

Through "Routing and Remote Access" I managed to create a connection to VPN server on location A, and it has automatically created a static route for 192.168.68.10 address.

The routing worked on location B for the server on location B itself (i could see the 192.168.68.10 shared folders and the interned also worked OK - not through vpn connection).

All the other computers on Location B still didn't have access to location A. I think that is understandable, as the router at location B manages the traffic, and he isn't telling all the computers how to route the 192.168.68 network. Would it help, if i also create a static route on the router itself? What should the route be?

 

[John Lewis]

Yes, you need a static route on the location B router.

Network 192.168.68.0 Mask 255.255.255.0 Gateway 192.168.0.xxx

replacing the xxx with the IP of the computer that is actually making the VPN connection.

Without this route, traffic from the other computers for 192.168.68.x goes to the default router. The default router does not know about the VPN connection, so it forwards the traffic to the internet. Once the route is added, the router will instead forward 192.168.68.x traffic to the VPN computer, which will in turn forward the traffic across the VPN.

Again, you may also need to add a similar route on the default router on the 192.168.68 network. This one would be

Network 192.168.0.0 Mask 255.255.255.0 Gateway 192.168.68.xxx

This time replacing the xxx with the IP of the VPN server on the 192.168.68 network.

If the VPN server is the default router on that network, this will take care of itself.

 

[burtsbees]

Connect from B to the VPN at A, connect to the share at the remote location, map that drive on the computer that is connected to the VPN.

/

tim@tim-laptop ~ $ sudo apt-get install windows
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package windows...Thank Goodness!