Problem: Local Mode with OpenVPN network

[Eternal_Snow]

Hello everyone.

I have a problem about Local Mode with OpenVPN network.

My VM is a domain based system, which needs a domain login and has folder redirections.

This VM works great as online mode. It's good while running this VM in local mode in my company.

One day, I go out of my company and use OpenVPN to connect back. I find that I have a problem.

After I start my VM, I realized that the VM network is bind to my REAL network, not the OpenVPN one. It cannot connect to DC of my company. The IP address of this VM is from DHCP on my REAL network, not the VPN server.

Is there any way to fix it?

Thanks.

[Eternal_Snow]

Is it possible to set up the local mode vm with NAT network mode?

[admin · Accepted solution]

This is interesting.

Local Mode by default operates in NAT mode, so if the host machine is hooked up to a VPN, the guest running in the Local Mode client should also see that network.

Couple clarifying questions so we can dig deeper:

1. Any chance the system has been reconfigured to force bridged mode instead?  (there are registry/GPO settings for this)
2. When is the VPN connection made?  Before or after the Local Mode VM is powered on?
3. Is the VM truly not accessing the VPN network or is it just failing to get DNS information, (e.g. if you have the full IP address of a machine that is accessible through the VPN, can you ping that even if you can't resolve its name?
4. If the VPN connection is made after the VM is powered on, have you tried the experiment of first making the VPN connection, then launching the VM?

I ask #2, #3 and #4 because the NAT daemon can sometimes be a little less responsive to host networking changes than you'd like -- particularly when it comes to DNS lookups.  You can also experiment with restarting the VMware NAT service on the host once the VPN connection is made to see if that gives it the kick it needs.

[Eternal_Snow]

Problem solved.

DNS error.

Thanks.

[admin]

Excellent!  Glad to hear it.

Can you clarify what your root cause issue was and what form of fix/workaround you're taking?

Was the issue external to Local Mode and you just needed to do something different with the overall DNS setup?

Or are you having to work around the VMware NAT service not picking up the DNS changes when it should?

I should note that we intend in the future to improve the NAT service so that it will reliably respond to this sort of DNS change if that was indeed the root cause of your problem.

Thanks!

[Eternal_Snow]

It's caused by the bad network topology.

In this case, DNS is running on the Domain Controller, which is linked to 2 separated networks (A:192.168.0.x and B:192.168.10.x).

VPN server is on the network A.

But the hotel network, which our coworker lives in, has the same network address like B.

When VPN connected, he can ping to the IP address of network A of the DC. But if he try to resolve domain name to IP address, it will get the address of network B as a wrong result. That's the problem.