Help with nas ftp server

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Gabisonfire

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Joined: Sat Feb 15, 2014 7:16 pm

Post by Gabisonfire » Sat Feb 15, 2014 7:21 pm
Hi,
First, I'm new to vpns so maybe this is a noob question.

Here's my setup: Viscosity installed standardly. Ip is 10.x.x.x on the client. My network uses 192.x.x.x
I have an ftp server on my nas that i can access within my lan, it has a static ip by dhcp reservation.
However, when the vpn is connected, I cannot access this server remotely. I've tried both with the ip and with the dynamic dns address. The port forward is made to point to the internal address 192.168.0.199 on port 21.

I've searched over and over but I don't think I grasp the vpn concept very well right now. Any help appreciated.

Thank you

Eric

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Posts: 1146
Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2010 3:27 am

Post by Eric » Mon Feb 17, 2014 12:13 pm
Hi Gabisonfire,

I'd just like to confirm a few details as I'm not 100% sure from your post:

You run your own OpenVPN server at home?
You VPN into this server when you are away from home and you are unable to access your NAS FTP server which is on the same network as your VPN Server?

Regards,

Eric
Eric Thorpe
Viscosity Developer

Web: http://www.sparklabs.com
Support: http://www.sparklabs.com/support
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sparklabs

Gabisonfire

Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Feb 15, 2014 7:16 pm

Post by Gabisonfire » Mon Feb 17, 2014 3:18 pm
Eric wrote:
Hi Gabisonfire,

I'd just like to confirm a few details as I'm not 100% sure from your post:

You run your own OpenVPN server at home?
You VPN into this server when you are away from home and you are unable to access your NAS FTP server which is on the same network as your VPN Server?

Regards,

Eric
Hi Eric,
I use a vpn provider and run it with Viscosity on my main pc. I'm trying to acces the FTP server on the NAS when I'm away like I used to with the dyndns adress in a browser (ex: ftp://my.dyndns.org). The NAS is on my LAN network.

Eric

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Posts: 1146
Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2010 3:27 am

Post by Eric » Mon Feb 17, 2014 4:58 pm
Hi Gabisonfire,

So your home computer is permanently connected to your VPN Provider, and you want to access your FTP server via your VPN Provider? If this is the case, you will need to speak to your VPN Provider.

Your first challenge is going to be routing these requests through their network. Even if you VPN into the same network on your laptop (i.e. your home computer might have 10.0.0.2 and your Laptop 10.0.0.3 on your VPN Providers internal network), the vast majority of VPN Providers block communication between clients for security, or put each user onto a private subnet. So you will need to check with your VPN Provider to see if you can VPN both PCs onto the same network without the two computers being firewalled off.

You will then need a software router or similar on your home computer to forward requests onto your NAS either via routing or port forwarding, something your home router would have been doing when you were using dyndns, Windows can't do this out of the box. There's a few options out there, but I'm afraid there is nothing I can recommend.

Regards,

Eric
Eric Thorpe
Viscosity Developer

Web: http://www.sparklabs.com
Support: http://www.sparklabs.com/support
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sparklabs

Gabisonfire

Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Feb 15, 2014 7:16 pm

Post by Gabisonfire » Tue Feb 18, 2014 7:38 am
Eric wrote:
Hi Gabisonfire,

So your home computer is permanently connected to your VPN Provider, and you want to access your FTP server via your VPN Provider? If this is the case, you will need to speak to your VPN Provider.

Your first challenge is going to be routing these requests through their network. Even if you VPN into the same network on your laptop (i.e. your home computer might have 10.0.0.2 and your Laptop 10.0.0.3 on your VPN Providers internal network), the vast majority of VPN Providers block communication between clients for security, or put each user onto a private subnet. So you will need to check with your VPN Provider to see if you can VPN both PCs onto the same network without the two computers being firewalled off.

You will then need a software router or similar on your home computer to forward requests onto your NAS either via routing or port forwarding, something your home router would have been doing when you were using dyndns, Windows can't do this out of the box. There's a few options out there, but I'm afraid there is nothing I can recommend.

Regards,

Eric
Well, I don't need to access the NAS through the vpn. If I could access it directly like before, it would be perfect.
I don't grasp the whole concept. If I get it correctly, my home computer is connected to the vpn, how does this affects my whole network?

If I get my dynDNS to sync with my ISP ip to my NAS adress instead of my home computer (I have a client installed that syncs my adress) would that work? Just thought about this now. I'll try it tonight.

Thanks for your help!

Eric

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Posts: 1146
Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2010 3:27 am

Post by Eric » Tue Feb 18, 2014 11:35 am
Hi Gabisonfire,

Viscosity will have no effect on your whole home network, only on the computer it is used on. The only setup you need to do is to setup port forwarding on your home router so incoming requests to your ISP IP address will hit your NAS, that's it, your VPN plays no part in a setup like this if you connect to your ISP IP Address.

As for DynDNS, this is the tricky part, you are going to have to install it on a different PC on your network, as being connected to your VPN is going to be reporting your IP as your VPN Providers to DynDNS instead of your ISPs. You can make an exclusion in the networking section of your Viscosity connection to try and get the DynDNS reports to bypass the VPN, please have a look at the following article on how to do this - http://www.sparklabs.com/support/routin ... lications/

Regards,

Eric
Eric Thorpe
Viscosity Developer

Web: http://www.sparklabs.com
Support: http://www.sparklabs.com/support
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sparklabs

Gabisonfire

Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Feb 15, 2014 7:16 pm

Post by Gabisonfire » Tue Feb 18, 2014 4:05 pm
Eric wrote:
Hi Gabisonfire,

Viscosity will have no effect on your whole home network, only on the computer it is used on. The only setup you need to do is to setup port forwarding on your home router so incoming requests to your ISP IP address will hit your NAS, that's it, your VPN plays no part in a setup like this if you connect to your ISP IP Address.

As for DynDNS, this is the tricky part, you are going to have to install it on a different PC on your network, as being connected to your VPN is going to be reporting your IP as your VPN Providers to DynDNS instead of your ISPs. You can make an exclusion in the networking section of your Viscosity connection to try and get the DynDNS reports to bypass the VPN, please have a look at the following article on how to do this - http://www.sparklabs.com/support/routin ... lications/

Regards,

Eric
Thanks so much for your help. Nice thing is, the DNS323 nas I have supports DDNS directly so I just had to set up my dns account to it and remove the dyndns client from my computer and now it is completely independent. Should've thought of that before. Anyways, thank you and keep the good work! Viscosity is awesome!
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