Configure VPN to access remote LAN network on Windows7

Question

Situation: I have two Windows7 machines (PC and laptop). I've set PC as VPN server and laptop as VPN client using default built-in W7 network tools. I've disabled use default gateway in remote network on client machine, so client don't try to route all communication through VPN. I've routed port 1723 (TCP/UDP) on NAT to my server and enabled IPSec/PPTP/L2TP passthrough

I've put my laptop in indepedent network (basically I've connected it via 3G network), connected to VPN server and checked ipconfig /all

I've get:

IP Address: 192.168.1.101 
Mask: 255.255.255.255
Gateway: (none)

LAN mask in server LAN network is 255.255.255.0 - I am surely missing something obvious, but Google doesn't give me any good advices; How can I access local LAN network from remote VPN client? How can I access local shared documents?

Answer 1

If you do not use default gateway in remote network then you are relying on the subnet route which should be added when you connect. Key troubleshooting step here is the "route print" command once connected. There should be a route that looks like this:

192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 RAS_IP VPN_IP 21

Where RAS_IP is an IP on the VPN server and VPN_IP is the IP allocated to the client PPTP interface (e.g. 192.168.1.101 in your example).

The fact this isn't working for you indicates a problem - perhaps your 3G client interface is also in 192.168.0.0/24. In any case, you need to start by sharing the full output from "route print" and "ipconfig /all" to troubleshoot.

Answer 2

I used hamachi as workaround, don't need that much security for home network :-)