Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2011 4:36 Post subject: OpenVPN, routed - how to browse ?
I got the OpenVPN server working, both the routed and bridged versions, so I can remotely connect to my home network. I saw some advice on the OpenVPN site, that generally routed vpns are more desirable - less broadcast traffic I guess.
But how do people browse to their shares then, when using the routed vpn networks?
You just memorize the names of the shares and use "net use" to mount them ? Or is there some less tedious method.
Seems like bridged networks are a bit easier to use if you're on Windows and have Windows/Samba shares.
(And just out of curiosity, what happens when I shift over to Linux . . . you share with NFS and are able to browse to them with the file browser ?)
I was told yesterday by a network expert that with a routed vpn network you can just put in the IP and then you'll see the shares. I'll have to check on that.
Browsing seems easier with bridging but I'll have to check them both again with the new information.
Also, he said something I didn't know which is that NFS shares are becoming deprecated since all OSs can deal with Samba/CIFS shares.
Joined: 07 Jun 2006 Posts: 1488 Location: the Netherlands
Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 6:22 Post subject:
kbarb wrote:
I was told yesterday by a network expert that with a routed vpn network you can just put in the IP and then you'll see the shares. I'll have to check on that.
Yes that's the way to go, if you know the IP or FQDN you can still browse shares (those are TCP anyway) but finding your computers in the network browser won't work (it uses UDP broadcasts).
Also network games that won't allow you to enter an IP address won't work (they usually use UDP broadcast to detect other games running in the network). _________________ Firmware: DD-WRT v24-sp2 (latest available) mega
WRT320N
If you have an AD controller, you can forward AD domain requests to the AD DNS serers via DNSMasq. Any regular DNS requests will still be forwarded to your ISP's DNS servers (or the DNS servers of your choice)
Follow the DNS forwarding in the Wiki and there are two options to make it work above depending on which firmware you have.
The end result allows you to type the fully qualified name of the server such as \\machinename.vpn-domain.local and browse the share as you normally would.
I don't think that you will get a browsable directory unless your PC is a member of the domain.
