Is it Possible to VPN onto the entire local network through Windows 2012 R2

vpnwindows-server-2012-r2

I currently have a windows 7 client set up to VPN into a Windows 2012 R2 server but it has it own ip network addresses between the client/server. eg. the Server has internal network ip of 192.168.1.11 that connects to other local computers and the VPN has 10.1.1.1.

Is it possible for my remote Windows 7 client to connect onto the Server's local network so the client has its own local ip (192.168.1.xx) that can access the other network resources?

Is it possible to do this with the standard configurations/settings of Windows Server 2012?

Best Answer

It's quite standard for VPN clients to not get an IP address actually belonging to the VPN server's internal network; they are assigned an address in a subnet specifically defined for VPN clients, so that the server can act as a firewall and enforce traffic control between the VPN clients and the internal network.

For this to work, you need three things:

  • The VPN server must act as a router.
  • The VPN client should either use the VPN as its default gateway, or have a static route (defined manually or supplied by the VPN server) that tells it how to reach the internal network via the VPN connection.
  • Last but not least, if the VPN server acts as a firewall and enforces traffic control, it should actually allow the VPN client to talk to the internal network (possibly only on some specific addresses/ports).

In the case of Windows' RRAS, this means:

  • Enable LAN routing together with VPN access.
  • Configure the VPN clients to use the VPN as their default gateway (this is the default setting, BTW; it's in the advanced TCP/IP properties of the VPN connection); or, if you don't want all the client traffic to flow though the VPN, manually define a static route or find a way for the VPN server to supply it to the client (which is, unfortunately, quite a bit more difficult than it should be).
  • Lastly, just don't care about the firewall issue, because Windows' RRAS isn't a firewall and will just let everything flow through it.
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