Backup VPN

[AndrewG]

Hello,

I have 50 branches around the place, each with a a few laptops/pc's/printers, and a router.

From time to time either the router, or the service going to the router breaks. We also have new sites pop up all the time, or office relocations without notice. I see wingate (VPN) helping me with all these problems. Hopefully.

I want to setup one laptop on each site to REPLACE the router if it ever fails (or the service fails or is not availible). I want this laptop to act as a router; handing our DHCP and being the default gateway for the other devices on the network.

The laptop will connect to the internet via a mobile connections (3G/4G). They connections will be from dymanic IP address's

I have a test link up, but having issues with the routing. I can only get the "machine to machine" working, not the "network to network".

Do i need to add static routes? pointing where? Whats the best way for handling this routing? Can RIP help?

Thanks in advance.

[adrien]

Hi

There are a couple of options if your scenario is where the WinGate VPN installation computer is not the default gateway for the LAN.

1. Enable RIP broadcasts in WinGate VPN settings, and enable RIP listening in your local gateway (the router which is the default gateway for the LAN).
2. Enable RIP broadcasts in WinGate VPN settings, and install RIP2 listeners in each client computer
3. Add a specific route(s) in the router for the VPN subnets to point via the local WinGate VPN computer.
4. Add those routes to the LAN computers.
5. DHCP settings option 249 can be used to deploy routes to DHCP clients, if supported by the routers. WinGate DHCP supports this.

So one scenario could be to configure WinGate to be the DHCP server, and dish out a route table to clients where the default route is the router, but the specific VPN routes are via WinGate.

RIP may be the only decent option if you don't know in advance what all the subnets are in use. Depending on the routers, some have only RIPv1, and some don't allow RIP on the LAN (only WAN for some unfathomable reason). So it will come down to router capabilities.

Regards

Adrien

[AndrewG]

Thanks Adrien,

I like the sound of option 4 to start off with (doing it the manual way, then automate later)

My setup is like this..
1, my head office network
2, my 3G laptop acting as the router and VPN gateway (attahed to 3G, and the LAN)
3, A desktop attached to the same LAN as the laptop above.

I can connect the VPN, but no traffic going over it from either the laptop or the desktop.

Only worrying about the laptop for now, what routes do i need to put in?
My head office network is 192.168.20.0/24 (VPN server being 192.168.20.194) and the laptop is 192.168.88.1 on the 192.168.88.0/24 network

I think im missing just one vital thing here,

Thanks again

[adrien]

Hi Andrew

one thing - does the WinGate Network driver show up in the properties for the 3G adapter?

We're still working on support for a new media type introduced in windows 7 which is a raw IP interface (no ethernet header). Yes, 7 has been out a while....

Anyway, if the WinGate network driver isn't showing there, that will explain lack of VPN, and you may need to see if you can find a Vista driver for the 3G adapter instead.

Regards

Adrien

[AndrewG]

Adrien,

No, the driver does not show up for the 3g card, that would be the issue. I also tried to add it manually, i found the file, but no valid drivers inside.

The only 3G drivers i can find are for all OS's..

If I used the wifi (802.11), then it works all fine. But not going to help in my final goal.

Any timeline on those changes?

[adrien]

HI Andrew

what is the 3G device? If it's available here we could probably duplicate and debug the issue. Also, do you already have all of them, or is it possible to deploy using another one that emulates ethernet rather than using the new raw IP media type?

Regards

Adrien

[AndrewG]

Adrien,

Its an Ericsson F5521gw, its built in all of the Lenovo laptops we have (L420 for example)

[adrien]

Hi Andrew

you may still be able to install the vista driver manually, try downloading and running the setup.exe in application compatibility mode for Vista.

Regards

Adrien