Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

Access VPN Within a DHCP Server

Sep 11, 2013 7:36AM PDT

I have an Asus RT-AC66U which comes with an on-board VPN Server which I have set up and have successfully connected to over LAN. I live in an apartment complex which provides internet to it's residents through a DHCP server. My question is, how do I access my VPN server through my apartments DHCP server? I can find out the IP of the complex, and I know the IP of the router. So is there a way to connect using these two IP addresses?
Thank you for your time,

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Answer
Keep in mind what a VPN is.
Sep 11, 2013 7:44AM PDT

The VPN is where you get your machine to behave as if you were on that LAN. Some folk confuse this with access to their server or home computer. So if it's setup right, your VPN destination is the internet IP of the router. That's it.

Done.
Bob

- Collapse -
Thats the goal.
Sep 11, 2013 8:05AM PDT

The goal is to be away from home and be able to connect to my home LAN. The IP address the apartment's DHCP gives the router is 192.168.18.__. When I try to connect to this address from my computer from a remote location it can't find it because the address of the complex is something else.
Thanks,

- Collapse -
Quick way to find the IP of the apartments router
Sep 11, 2013 8:31AM PDT

is to go to whatismyip.com

That will tell you what the outside address of the router is


P

- Collapse -
IP Test Concluded What I Already Know
Sep 11, 2013 11:43AM PDT

I used that website to test my my computer's IP on the router and on the apartment's wall jack. The web site showed the same IP both times. This is the IP address for the complex's DHCP server.
-The ISP gives the complex an IP of 97.__.___.144
-The complex's DHCP server gives my router an IP of 192.168.18.25
Because my computer won't see the VPN at 192.168.18.25, how do I connect to my VPN server (located at 192.168.18.25) from outside the complex?
Thanks,

- Collapse -
you need to configure the router,
Sep 11, 2013 9:50PM PDT

but I doubt you have admin access to it or use some other method such as team viewer.

teamviewer.com has details


P

- Collapse -
192.168.18.25 is non-routable.
Sep 12, 2013 1:05AM PDT

And would never be the destination address from the internet. It appears you need to setup the VPN again.
Bob

- Collapse -
Hmm,
Sep 12, 2013 3:51AM PDT

I'm surprised I can't type something into the address field to get it to go to one IP address then look inside that LAN for another address. Is that possible?
Also, I'm having trouble with my current TeamViewer. It won't save any of my changes to the options menu, after I apply them and restart the computer the settings go back to the way they were before. Any ideas?
Thanks,

- Collapse -
It appears we have to discuss non-routeable IPs.
Sep 12, 2013 4:03AM PDT

Because there are a finite number of Internet addresses, some IP ranges were set aside for internal LAN use, i.e. what you have behind the router.

Again, what a VPN is, is often misunderstood by folk new to networking. If you find someone telling you they want to setup a VPN, you nod and wait. Later they write they want this VPN connection to their PC which is not what a VPN does at all.

-> Again, a VPN (virtual private network) when setup up right is just like you plugging your PC into the network you provided VPN access to. So at that point you are connected to the home network and getting to the PC is done the same way as you do from other PCs on the LAN.

Sorry if any of this upsets you but we have to clearly define what a VPN does and get past that before we start into connecting to the PC on some LAN behind a router.

I have no use for TeamViewer and will defer to their support.
Bob

- Collapse -
PS. About non-routeable addresses.
Sep 12, 2013 4:04AM PDT