VPN question

PauloMN

When I work from home, I need to access my work network via a VPN connection. Essentially I only need this so I can run one application that needs to access a license server in work. Everything else I just need direct internet access for.

So I connect to my work VPN no bother. What I'm wondering is whether there's a way to "tell" Windows 7 that it should only route network traffic for that one application through the VPN but nothing else? There's no reason for any other applications (like Skype, Chrome etc.) to be going through the VPN connection as it just slows those applications down unnecessarily.

Is there an easy way to tell Windows 7 which applications to route through the VPN connection?

pizzahead77

PauloMN wrote: »

When I work from home, I need to access my work network via a VPN connection. Essentially I only need this so I can run one application that needs to access a license server in work. Everything else I just need direct internet access for.

So I connect to my work VPN no bother. What I'm wondering is whether there's a way to "tell" Windows 7 that it should only route network traffic for that one application through the VPN but nothing else? There's no reason for any other applications (like Skype, Chrome etc.) to be going through the VPN connection as it just slows those applications down unnecessarily.

Is there an easy way to tell Windows 7 which applications to route through the VPN connection?

What VPN software are you using? It may be that your IT department do not allow local traffic when the VPN connection is active.

I know with Cisco ASA's that its possible to have only VPN traffic route through the VPN and all other network traffic uses normal routes

PauloMN

I just set up the VPN connection in Windows 7. I'm talking purely about my client machine here, just wondering if there's some way for me to tell my Windows OS that only traffic from the one relevant application should go through the VPN connection, everything else should go straight to the internet.

TomCleverly

As far as I know, if the application doesn't have specific options to configure this you won't be able to do it.

HomerS

By default the Windows VPN client uses the VPN tunnel as the default gateway when connected which routes all non-local traffic via, in your case, your offices router.

To disable this, right click on the VPN connection and go to properties
Click the networking tab
Click on the Internet Protocol Version 4 TCP/IP line
Click properties
Then Advanced
Then untick button "Use default gateway on remote network"
Keep clicking OK till all screens are gone.

Best way to test if this is working for you, go to whatsmyip.org before connecting to your VPN and take a note of your current external IP address.
Then connect your VPN to your office and reload the page. If it stays the same address it is working.

There is one kicker which could cause you a problem with this setup.
When you connect to your works VPN router, your computer will be given an address on your offices LAN, the application you are using must be accessable on this subnet for it to work.

Example of this would be when you connect you are given an address of 192.168.10.10 with subnet of 255.255.255.0. If the application you are using is connecting to a device with an IP address in the range of 192.168.10.1 to 192.168.10.254 you will be fine, but if the IP address you need to connect to is at (e.g.) 192.168.11.100 with the above setup you wouldn't be able to connect to it.

Anyways try it out and see how it goes.
Regards
HS

PauloMN

Thanks HomerS, will give that a whirl.