networkingvmwarevpnwindows
I've got two home networks (LANs in 2 locations) which i want to connect together so that PCs from both networks can be accessed from any other PC on any of those two networks.
I far as i know it's possible to setup using VPN. I have Windows 2000 Advanced Server which can be setup as a VPN host. I was going to run in as a virtual machine.
Can anyone suggest the best approach to it and how to setup the VPN (i.e. the network) and make it always connected.
To answer your question, Yes, you're "lucky" it's working.
When you connect to your VPN, your tunnel interface is assigned an IP by that remote DHCP server. So you're technically routing from the VPN server to your remote devices. You're probably connecting to your servers via their DNS names or something, which is resolved by your DNS servers locally. In which case if it couldn't find it, it'll search in your remote office.
So technically yes, this'll work. But it is not very efficient.
EDIT**
So for eg. your VPN client is assigned an address by the SSL VPN. Which could be a different network address range. (eg. 172.16.32.0/16) While your remote network is working in the 192.168.1.0/24 range. The VPN server can be configured to bridge the two networks together.
The IP that your VPN client gets is not from the remote site's system/router's DHCP server, but rather the VPN server's DHCP server.
About the DNS, I don't really know how to explain properly. It uses a mix of DNS, ARP and RARP requests to determine the correct device. Hopefully this is enough to understand.
I have never seen this type of VPN setup before (likely it is very common). The current IP ranges are defeating the main purpose of a VPN. You will not be able to see your other devices (connected to 192.168.1.*) from your VPN (192.168.10.*) unless you do some trickery with bridges etc.
Solutions:
1) Change your VPN ip range to 192.168.1.xxx-xxx (on your router) and change the DHCP range so they don't conflict.
2) If you are not able to change the IP range for VPN, try updating the router firmware OR downloading an open-source router firmware (DD-WRT, Tomato, OpenWRT, etc)
3) If #1 and #2 do not work, you will have to create a VPN server on a standalone computer.
Best Answer
Hamachi has its advantages and disadvantages, so consider this alternate VPN design. This is basically a DIY VPN router as Scott's answer discusses, using 3rd-party firmware that may work with the routers/gateways you already have.
Use DD-WRT with OpenVPN on the router/gateway of both the home networks. You'll need an OpenVPN-enabled firmware, or room to install it as an add-on package. (The latest DD-WRTs claim to make this very easy. I haven't tried it yet. Read through Enabling OpenVPN for the full process.)
You'll end up with a site-to-site VPN between the networks, and can configure it in a routed (two separate networks) or bridged (one network in two places) configuration. Which one you should use depends on your requirements. It's worth taking the time to draw up a network design and spell out what you need out of this setup.
Routed: (source)
Bridged: (source)
Examples:
The mDNS/Bonjour/Zeroconf service to supply addresses like hostname.local across both home networks might require a Bridged mode to work. On the other hand, you may prefer to setup your own internal DNS and access the networks with addresses like hostname.foo and otherhost.bar.
Windows Filesharing name resolution used to work via broadcast messages, so a bridged connection allows Windows computer browsers to find each other. A routed solution required a WINS server to allow Windows network browsing to work. (You can probably do that with W2k Advanced Server, or you could look for a Samba WINS server package for DD-WRT.) (Also, I say "used to" based on experiences with Samba; recent Win-7 improvements may have fixed this.
Some games really want broadcast capability for network games, so again bridged mode may be preferable. If they have different network modes for LAN games vs Internet games, that could be the difference.